Introduction
At the turn of the 19th century, Scottish brothers John and Charles Bell set out to reform medical education and thus, medicine. Through their work as teachers of surgery and anatomy and as writers of medical textbooks, they aimed to give students an experience-based education that they could apply to their future careers as physicians and surgeons. What made the Bells' work especially unique was their skills as artists, which they used to illustrate their own books. Combining their knowledge of anatomy, their real-world experience as surgeons, and their clear and realistic artistic styles, the Bell brothers presented anatomy and surgery from a practical perspective, encouraging their students to apply this knowledge to their own practices.
Credits
Curated and designed by Katie Lattal, MA, Special Collections Librarian, and Emma Florio, MLIS, Archives & Research Specialist.
Brothers John and Charles Bell were born into an accomplished Edinburgh family. Their father Reverend William Bell died when they were young, leaving their mother Margaret to raise them.
John and Charles each had successful careers as teachers of surgery and anatomy, as practicing surgeons, and as artists who illustrated their own medical works. Explore this exhibit to learn how the work they did as artists contributed to their overall goals of improving the teaching and practice of medicine.
John Bell
- Born in 1763 in Edinburgh, Scotland
- MD from University of Edinburgh, 1779
- Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, 1786
- Started his own school of anatomy in Edinburgh
- Had the most successful surgical practice in Scotland
- Regarded as the father of applied surgical anatomy
- Died in 1820 in Rome, Italy
Charles Bell
- Born in 1774 in Edinburgh, Scotland
- Studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh
- Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, 1799
- Taught surgery and anatomy in London
- Involved in founding King's College London and University College London's medical school
- Known for studying the nervous system and for describing Bell's palsy, a type of facial paralysis
- Died in 1842 in Hallow, England
The Scottish Enlightenment
Scotland was one of the centers of the Enlightenment, the intellectual and philosophical movement that swept through Western Europe in the 18th century. Its proponents valued human reason and skepticism over dogmatic religious tradition and emphasized the pursuit of empirical scientific knowledge to benefit the individual and society.