Contribution of Sir Charles Bell to medicine

Relevance. Knowledge of scientific concepts and achievements of the past provides an informative basis for modern research. Moreover, these achievements are filled with the greatest meaning if they are associated with a specific person and the time in which they occurred. Thus, knowledge of the history of science allows us not to neglect the intellectual heritage of past generations and turn it into potential for the development of modern research. In one of his speeches, Nobel laureate Sir Andrew Huxley noted that if he had familiarized himself with the literature of the 19th century in more detail, he would have been able to successfully complete some of his research much faster and more effectively. It must be said that the 19th century gave humanity a whole galaxy of the greatest scientists who made truly fateful discoveries. Our article is dedicated to one of such scientists - Sir Charles Bell (1774-1842), an outstanding Scottish surgeon, anatomist and experimental physiologist. Results of study. In the course of his scientific, teaching and practical medical activities, Bell implemented his accumulated knowledge and experience in the publication of many treatises that remain relevant to this day. Charles Bell applied his talent as an artist in anatomy, personally illustrating magnificent treatises written in collaboration with his older brother, the famous surgeon John Bell, and in surgery (more precisely, in military field surgery), sketching the wounded after the Battle of Waterloo. The scientist also made an invaluable contribution to the development of neurology. Thus, the name of Charles Bell is immortalized in the name of the long thoracic (or «external respiratory») nerve, in the description of lower motor neuron palsy of the facial nerve, and in the «Bell’s sign», when the eyeball rolls upward when trying to close the eye. His description of the differences between the fifth and seventh cranial nerves, as well as the definition of the morpho-functional characteristics of the anterior and posterior roots of the spinal cord as Bell’s law, are widely known. For his invaluable contribution to science, Charles Bell was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Society and made a knight of the Hanoverian Guelphic Order. Conclusion. The statement of the great Russian surgeon N.I. Pirogov, «Everything that is high in the world is art, inspiration and science…» is the most appropriate description of his contemporary Charles Bell, who combined these three hypostases. It is important to note that the reflex theory, whose founder is considered to be Charles Bell, is a fundamental concept of physiology and medicine, although in the early stages (in the mid-19th century) this principle was considered only in relation to the spinal cord.