THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 



293 



Bell's career was a unique one. He had early severed 

 his connection with the great medical schools of Edin- 

 burgh, where his brother taught. He lectured and prac- 

 tised privately in London, where he gained a considerable 

 reputation ; but in his case also it was on the Continent 

 that his greatness was more generally recognised. As in 

 Dalton's case, his countrymen were slow to do him justice. 1 

 In France he had so great a name that a celebrated 



auf Job. Miiller ' (Berlin Acad. , 

 1859) showed how the merit of 

 enunciating it is due to Descartes, 

 whose tract on ' Les Passions de 

 1'Ame ' was published in 1649. 

 Both Du Bois-Reymond and Huxley 

 give full extracts from the writings 

 of Descartes. There seems, however, 

 to be some doubt to what extent 

 Descartes substantiated his mechan- 

 ical view of the action of the nerv- 

 ous system by actual experiments. 

 Richet in his ' Physiologic des 

 Muscles et des Nerfs' (Paris, 1882, 

 p. 505, &c.) refers to this, and 

 while giving Descartes his due, 

 also says that practically from the 

 time of Galen to Charles Bell no 

 marked progress had been made 

 in the knowledge of the nervous 

 system, and that this belongs al- 

 most entirely to the nineteenth 

 century (pp. 502, 507, 514). Huxley, 

 who takes a much higher view of 

 the merits of Descartes, says he 

 was not only a speculator, but also 

 an observer and dissector (loc. cit., 

 p. 201), and actually places him 

 at the head of modern physiology 

 (p. 334, &c.) 



1 Charles Bell (1774-1842) was 

 born at Edinburgh. His elder 

 brother, John Bell (1763-1820), 

 who was a lecturer of great repute 

 in the extra-mural School of Surgery 

 at Edinburgh, first drew his atten- 

 tion to the medical profession. It 

 was only late in life, and after he 



had gained his European renown, 

 that he was appointed to the Chair 

 of Surgery at the University of 

 Edinburgh, which had been created 

 in 1831, and it does not appear 

 that he was at all sufficiently ap- 

 preciated in this position : he used 

 to say, " I seem to walk in a city of 

 tombs," being unknown in the city 

 of his birth (see Sir A. Grant, 

 ' University of Edinburgh,' vol. ii. 

 p. 453). Whilst Charles Bell es- 

 tablished the difference of sensory 

 and motor nerves, and dispelled 

 "the confusion which prevailed up 

 to that time in the minds of anato- 

 mists and physiologists regarding 

 the functions of the various nerves," 

 the merit of proving by strict ex- 

 periment the correctness of Bell's 

 theorem belongs to Johannes Miiller 

 (1831), who showed it in the frog, 

 and to Magendie and Longet, who 

 succeeded in exhibiting it in warm- 

 blooded animals. Up to the date 

 of Miiller's experimental proof no- 

 body regarded "Bell's doctrine aa 

 more than an ingenious and indeed 

 plausible, but nevertheless not suf- 

 ficiently demonstrated, idea" (see 

 Du Bois-Reymond, ' Reden,' vol. ii. 

 p. 176, &c. ; also Henle's descrip- 

 tion of the demonstration given by 

 Miiller in Paris on the 13th Sep- 

 tember 1831 to Humboldt, Dutro- 

 chet, Valenciennes, and Laurillart, 

 in 'Jacob Henle,' by Merkel, 1891, 

 p. 83). 



