BEL 



190 



n E L 



frelin/s. he began the work. A writer in the ' yunrtcrly 

 Review ' assert* that thin most honoured friend to whom we 

 stand indebted for n : !!ent hook, wa Earl Gran- 



villo. tlu-ii prcMdcnt of tho council, and this may probably 

 be the fact We, however, doubt the rest of the reviewer's 

 story, which goo* on to say that the volumes were written, 

 or copiously revised, by a professed literary man. Honest 

 John Bell speaks of them as his own faulty compositions, 

 and excuses the 'plainness of the style,' which n their chief 

 chnrm, and which could hardly have proceeded (so much 

 individuality is there in it) from anybody but from a man 

 relating his own adventures. The work, in two vols. lin , 

 was printed and published at Glasgow by subscription, in 

 1763. It has been several time* rcprinted'in various forms, 

 and a French translation of it has been wid. iied on 



the ( 'ontincnt. It includes the translation of a journal kept 

 by M. De Lange, a gentleman who accompanied Ismayloff 

 to Pekin, and who remained in that city to finish the nego- 

 ciations with the Chinese, for several months after the de- 

 parture of the ambassador. This journal details the manner 

 of transacting business with the minister!) of state in China, 

 and exposes their conceit and chicanery. 



BELL, JOHN, an eminent surgeon and anatomist, the 

 first who successfully applied, in Scotland, the science of 

 anatomy to practical surgery, was horn in Edinburgh on the 

 lith of May, 1763, and died of dropsy at Rome on the 15th 

 of April, 1820. The grandfather of John Bell, of the same 

 name, was minister of Gladsmuir in East Lothian, the parish 

 which was afterwards held by the historian of Charles V. 

 He died at the early age of thirty-two, with a high cha- 

 racter for learning and virtue. The father of the subject of 

 this article, the Rev. William Hell, a learned scholar and 

 eloquent minister, was. in the course of his education for the 

 presbyterian church, led, by a perusal of the English di- 

 vines, to become a member of the episcopal church of Scot- 

 land, then in the lowest stale of depression on account of its 

 attachment to the exiled family of the Stuarts. By this act 

 he entailed on himself a life of labour without any prospect 

 of worldly advantages. The mother of Mr. John Bell was 

 of a family which, in a long descent, had furnished cl 



to the episcopal church of Scotland during its splen- 

 dour and in its decay. She was a woman of masculine 

 understanding, tempered with great mildness and gentle- 

 of manners, and improved by an excellent education 

 under the care of Bishop White, her maternal grandfather. 

 There were eight children of the marriage, two of whom 

 died in infancy. Robert, John, George Joseph (the present 

 Professor of Law in Edinburgh), anil Charles, became emi 

 ncnt in their several professions. About a month before 

 the birth of John, the father, then fifty-nine years old, had 

 submitted to the operation for stone; and Ivis admiration of 

 that science to which he owed his safety led him to devote 

 to the services of mankind, in the medical profession, the 

 talent of the son born while his heart was warm with grati- 

 tude for the relief which he had obtained. He died on the 

 2Gth of September, I" 1 '. 



John Bell was educated at the high school of Edin- 

 burgh, and at the usual age was entered as a pupil in sur- 

 gery with the late Mr. Alexander Wood of that place. He 

 was very early remarkable for enthusiasm in his pn.i 

 and always engaged with great ardour in whatever he 

 undertook. It is a proof of his early jr.. ;hnt he 



had hardly arrived at manhood before his assistance ua- 

 ly sought by his teachers both in the departments of 

 it wry and chemistry. During tho time that Bell was 

 pursuing his studies, the medical school of the University 

 of Edinburgh stood very high, ranking among its pro! 

 'Black, Cullcn, and the second Monro. It w .is while attend- 

 ing the lectures of the last mentioned professor that Bell 

 saw the way to his professional advancement. Monro was 

 zealous anatomist, and anatomy was well taught as tin- 

 ground-work of medical science, but its application ' 



was quite neglected. This deficiency Bell was detcr- 

 1 to supply, and in the year 1790, whilst yet a very 

 young man, he built a theatre in Surgeon's Square. Kdin- 

 oargh, where he delivered lectures on surgery and anatomy, 

 earn -lions, and laid the foundation of a mu-cum. 



As there was then scarcely any private teaching or means 

 of cultivating anatomy by private dissections, the establish- 

 ment of a school naturally excited great hostility against 

 Mr. Bell, every attempt at p; 



I'd as an encroachment on the privilc profes- 



sor* and the rights of the university. In his lectures I 



wont to'spoak of some of Monro's anatomical opinion! with 

 less respect than the character of that great mini deserved, 

 and he made no scruple to expose many mistaken doctrine* 

 and erroneous practices recommended in the system of sur- 

 gery of Mr. Benjamin Bell. The tone and spini 

 criticisms rained up a host of enemies among the friends 

 of these two gentlemen. 



In 1799 a pamphlet was published, entitled ' Review of 

 the writings of John Bell, Esq., hv Jonathan Dawpltickcr.' 

 It was an affected panegyric of Mr. Bell's works, and was 

 dedicated to him : but the real design was to r 

 t'ir-i volume of Anatomy,' to represent him as a } 

 ' to pluck from him all his borrowed feathers,' and to \ iin. 

 Dr. Monro and Mr. Benjamin Bell from his criticism!. The 

 author was -supposed to he some near friend of Benjamin 

 Bell's. Mr. John Bell published a second number, under 

 the same name of J. Dawplucker, addressed to Mr. Ben- 

 jamin Bell. It contained ironical remarks on this sur- 

 geon's system of surgery, and had such an effect on the 

 popularity of his work that it soon ceased to be the text- 

 book for students. At this time Mr. (now Sir) Charles 

 Bell was associated with his brother in teaching, the latter 

 taking the surgical, the former the anatomical department. 



The College of Surgeons in Edinburgh presented at this 

 time a very anomalous condition. It was a college of sur- 

 gery and a corporation, forming an integral part of the town- 

 council of Edinburgh. The first character had fallen c 111- 

 paratively into neglect and oblivion, while the priv.: 

 belonging to the body in its relation to the burgh, c\; 



uibcrs to the temptation of mixing in the politics of 

 tho town. This state of the college Mr. Bell was very 

 anxious to alter ; he wished to convert the college into a 

 literary and scientific body, and to separate it 1'nnn tho 

 politics of the city. It was a part of his plan that the CM 

 should resume the right, vested in them by their charter, of 

 appointing a professorship of surgery, and take upon them 

 their proper duty of watching over the interests of anatomy 

 and surgery; that the examination should be placed on a 

 more respectable footing ; that the candidates should com- 

 pose a thesis on some subject of surgery or ana 

 gestions which have since been adopted, but the i 

 which at that time excited airainst Mr. Bell -.'real opposition. 

 Tho change which was at this time proposed in tho MI: 

 attendance at the infirmary, and which, on being uliitn 

 carried into effect, proved fatal to Mr. Bell's prospects as a 

 teacher, was supposed to have had its origin in this feeling. 

 The membe.-s of the College of Surgeon- fere in rotation 

 the surgeons of the establishment, and on, during 



his attendance, chose his own assistant for his operations, 

 and those whose talents or inclinations did not lead them to 

 take their share in the duties of the hospital, devolved 

 duties on others, and thus the surgeons particularly qua- 

 lified for this situation soon distinguished i! Mr. 

 Bell, from his expertness as an operator, was among the 

 number. 



Dr. Gregory drew up a pleading or memorial to the ma- 

 nagers of the infirmary against this system, and proposed 

 that two or three ordinary surgeons, the but qualified that 

 Could be got, should he permanently appointed, with as- 

 si-tant :i-.<\ con- lilting surgeons. Mr. Bell, seeing that the 

 proceedings were intended to affect his interests and his 

 plans of teaching, made an appeal pervinally to the board of 

 the infirmary. lie laid M\ f"ho KmKs o!' cu-es on the I 

 filled with surgical di ! -tir^iral cases: he repre- 



sented the long time he had served tho poor in that i. 

 and the great attention he had paid to the interests of his 

 profession, and how assiduously he hud laboured ; ho ex- 

 plained to them the manner in which he had taught his 

 classes, that he had accompanied the students from tho 

 lecture-room to the infirmary ; he explained to them how 

 inseparably connected his system of teaohin:: was with the 

 host interests of the patients, as well as with the im; 

 mcnt of surgery. All this was in vain : in the end he found 

 II 1 and In- brother with innny other surgeons deprived 

 of the use of tho institution. Mr. 'Bell brought the question 

 before th<- ci.urls of law. whether tin- 

 to exclude him from the infirmary, and it was adjudged 

 him. 



In 17''- hei-nt to Yarmouth to visit those who had been 

 v/oun'!- iiperdown. and h" there applied h.:. 



with the zeal and activity of the most devoted Student to 

 the proofs exhibited in the wounded of those grent prin- 

 ciples of surgery which it had been the business of his life 



