Sir Charles Bell and the Mysteries of the Brain

The heart and the brain had for thousands of years been considered the "noble" organs, organs shrouded in the deepest of mysteries, highly organized masses of tissues properly hidden from man's prying eyes and curious fingers. They were not to be touched under any circumstances ; they held the secrets of life and death and for that reason were sacred in the sight of God. So it was that for two thousand years the heart hid its secrets under the bony cage of the chest until William Harvey took the heart apart and exposed the secrets of the circulation of the blood and of the contraction and expansion of the heart which kept the human body in a state of living activity. So it was, too, that the brain, and the nerves that arose from the brain, hid their secrets under the protection of the bony cage of the cranium until Charles Bell struck out into new and forbidden territory and for the first time made the brain reveal its secrets. Early in his career Charles Bell said: "The study of the nerves is in truth the best foundation of medical knowledge," and he proceeded to prove this the rest of his life. He was constantly immersed in unravelling the mysteries of the brain and the nerves, the ailments that beset them, the functions that were entrusted to them, and the ways they controlled the destinies of man. Little is known of Bell's student days. He attended classes at the University of Edinburgh, but he did not take a degree. For a number of years, while in the early twenties, and perhaps even before this, he assisted his brother John in conducting classes in anatomy and surgery.