BELL, CHARLES. 1774-1842.


Autograph Letter Signed ("Charles Bell"), to Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens, discussing his discoveries and the dispute with Magendie, 3 pp, 4to, Edinburgh, September 24, [1841], repaired tears at folds.AN IMPORTANT LETTER TO FELLOW SCIENTIST FLOURENS, SHEDDING LIGHT ON THE BELL-MAGENDIE DISPUTE. Max Neuburger considered the elucidation of the "Bell-Magendie law of the function of the spinal roots to be the greatest physiological discovery since Harvey's discovery of the circulation" (Garrison-McHenry, History of Neurology, p 189). In this fascinating letter, Bell discusses with Flourens (who had recently published a history of the subject) the history of his own experiments and "reflexions," and writes of his decades-long dispute with Magendie over credit for the discovery of the roots of motor and sensory nerves: "Is it not strange, is it not lamentable to witness such unwillingness in the medical profession to acknowledge discovery until the author is dead or indifferent! My life would have been one of more activity and pleasure had any one done for me what you have done in this volume. But on the contrary, the manner in which my observations have been received, from the beginning, the impudence with which they have been stolen has disgusted me. And worst of all, when acknowledgements have been made, I found myself associated with men with whom it was no honor to be joined so that what might have brought credit and advantage has been on the contrary a source of positive unhappiness." Accompanied by the June 1906 issue of the Medical Library & Historical Journal (with an article on Flourens's defence of Bell in Magendie's presence); Cranefield's facsimile edition of Documents and Dates of Modern Discoveries in the Nervous System [by Alexander Walker], ("an important document in the Bell-Magendie controversy"); and an 1839 engraved portrait of Bell by James Thompson (London, 1839).