Bell, Sir Charles, 1774–1842, Scottish anatomist and surgeon. He became professor of anatomy and surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons, London, in 1824 and was professor of surgery at the Univ. of Edinburgh from 1836. He was the first to distinguish between the motor and the sensory functions of the nerves; this work was confirmed and elaborated by Magendie in 1822. Among Bell's works is The Nervous System of the Human Body (1830).
See his letters (ed. by his wife, 1870); biographies by E. Bramwell (1935) and Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor and E. W. Walls (1958).
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