a well-known instrument, ranked by musicians among the musical instruments of percussion.

Bell-metal is an alloy of copper and tin, usually in the proportion of 80 parts of copper to 20 parts of tin. Zinc generally enters into the composition of small shrill bells. By analysis Dr Thompson found an English bell-metal to consist of 800 parts copper, 101 tin, 56 zinc, and 43 lead. The thickness of a bell's edge is usually 1-15th of the diameter, and its height is twelve times its thickness. The bell-founders have a diapason, or scale, wherewith they measure the size, thickness, weight, and tone of their bells.

The sound of a bell is produced by the vibratory motion of its parts, somewhat like that of a musical chord. The stroke of the clapper must necessarily change the figure of the bell, and from a circle convert it into an oval or ellipse; but the metal having a great degree of elasticity, that part impinged on by the clapper, and driven farthest from the centre, will return, and even incline nearer the centre than before; so that the two parts which were extremes of the longest diameter become in turn those of the shortest; and thus the external surface of the bell undergoes alternate changes of figure, and by this means gives that tremulous motion to the air in which the sound consists. M. Perrault maintains that the sound of the same bell or chord is a compound of the sounds of its several composite parts; so that where the parts are homogeneous, and the dimensions of the figure uniform, there is such a perfect mixture of all these sounds as constitutes one uniform, smooth, even sound; while the contrary circumstances produce harshness. This he proves from bells differing in tone according to the part impinged on, although there is a motion of all the parts wherever the blow happens to be given. He therefore considers bells as a compound of an infinite number of rings, which, according to their different dimensions, have different tones, as chords of different lengths have; and when struck, the vibrations of the parts immediately impinged determine the tone, being supported by a sufficient number of consonant tones in the other parts.

Bells are heard at a greater distance when placed on plains than on hills, and still farther in valleys than on plains; the reason of which seems to be, that the higher the sonorous body the rarer is the medium, and, consequently, the less impulse it receives, and the less proper a vehicle it is to convey sound to a distance.

M. Reaumur, speaking of the shape most proper for bells, remarks, that as pots and other vessels more immediately necessary to the service of life were doubtless made before bells, it probably happened that the observing these vessels to have a sound when struck, gave occasion to making bells in that form; but that it does not appear that this is the most eligible figure; for lead, which in its ordinary state has no sonorous property, yet when cast in a melting ladle or otherwise into a segment of a sphere, acquires a certain degree of sonorosity; and hence he infers, that such a figure is peculiarly adapted for small bells, such as those of house-clocks, &c.

The use of bells was very ancient. We find them among Jews, Greeks, Romans, Christians, and heathens, variously applied, as on the necks of men, birds, oxen, horses, and sheep. It is remarkable, however, that there is no appearance of bells in any of the Egyptian monuments. Bells were chiefly suspended in buildings, either religious, as in churches, temples, and monasteries; or civil, as in houses, markets, baths; or military, as in camps and frontier towns. In the museum at Naples are several kinds of ancient bells, one of which is a simple disk of metal.

Among the Jews it was ordained that the lower part of the blue tunic which the high priest wore when he performed religious ceremonies should be adorned with pomegranates and gold bells, intermixed alternately and at equal distances. (Exodus xxviii. 33, 34.) The number of the bells worn by the high priest is not specified; but the sacred historian has intimated the purpose they were intended to serve, viz., to give intimation both when he entered and came out of the holy place. The tinkling of a bell at the elevation of the host in the Roman Catholic sacrament of the mass is founded upon this circumstance.

Among the Greeks, those who went the nightly rounds in camps or garrisons, carried with them little bells, which they rung at each sentry-box, to see that the soldiers on watch were awake. A codonophorus or bellman also walked in funeral processions, some space in advance of the corpse, not only to keep off the crowd, but to advertise the flamendialis to keep out of the way, lest he should be polluted by the sight, or by the funerary music. The priest of Proserpine at Athens, called hierophantes, rung a bell to call the people to sacrifice. There were also bells in the houses of great men, to call up the servants in the morning. Zonaras informs us that bells were suspended along with whips on the triumphal chariots of victorious generals, in order to put them in mind that they were still liable to public justice. Bells were also put on the necks of criminals going to execution, that persons might be warned by the noise to avoid so ill an omen as the sight of the hangman or the condemned criminal, who was devoted to the dii manes.

Of bells on the necks of brutes, express mention is made in Phaedrus; and taking them away was construed theft by the civil law.

With respect to the origin of church-bells, Mr Whitaker observes, that as bells were used by the Romans to signify the times of bathing, they were naturally applied by the Christians of Italy to denote the hours of devotion, and to summon the people to church. The first application of them to this purpose is ascribed by Polydore Virgil and others to Paulinus, bishop of Nola, a city of Campania, about A.D. 400. Hence, it is said, the names molea and campanae were given them; the one referring to the city, the other to the country. In Britain, bells were applied to church purposes before the conclusion of the seventh century in the monastic societies of Northumbria, and even as early as the sixth in those of Caledonia. They were therefore used from the first erection of parish churches. Those of France and England appear to have been furnished with several bells. In France they were sometimes composed of iron; and in England, as formerly at Rome, they were frequently made of brass.

Ingulphus mentions that Turketulus, abbot of Croyland, who died about A.D. 870, gave to the church of that abbey a great bell, which he named Guthlac, and afterwards six others, two of which he called Bartholomew and Bettelin, two Turketul and Tutwin, and two he named Pega and Bega. All of them rang together; and the same author says, Non erat tune tanta consomantia campanarum in tota Anglia. Not long after, Kinsens, archbishop of York, gave two great bells to the church of St John at Beverley, and at the same time provided that other churches in his diocese should be furnished with bells. Mention is also made by St Aldhelm, and William of Malmesbury, of bells given by St Dunstan to the churches in the West. The number of bells in every church gave occasion to the curious and singular architecture which is often found in the campanile or bell-tower; an addition which is perhaps more susceptible of architectural embellishment than any other part of the edifice. It was the constant appendage of every parish church belonging to the Saxons, and is distinctly mentioned as such in the laws of Athelstane.

The Greek Christians are usually said to have been unacquainted with bells till the ninth century, when the construction of these instruments was first taught them by a Venetian; but it is not true that the use of bells was entirely unknown in the ancient Eastern churches, and that they called the people to church with wooden mallets. In some learned dissertations on the Greek temples, Leo Allatius proves the contrary from several ancient writers. In his opinion bells first began to be disused after the taking of Constantinople by the Turks; the latter, it seems, having prohibited them lest their sound should disturb the repose of souls wandering in the air. Father Simon, however, thinks that the Turks prohibited the Christians the use of bells from political rather than religious motives; inasmuch as the ringing of bells might serve as a signal for revolts or popular commotions.

In the ancient monasteries we find six kinds of bells enumerated by Durandus, namely, squilla, rung in the refectory; cymbalum, in the cloister; nola, in the choir; noluta or dupla, in the clock; campana, in the steeple; and signum, in the tower. Belethus very nearly agrees with Durandus, only for squilla he puts tintinnabulum, and places the campana in the tower, and campanella in the cloister. Others place the tintinnabulum or tintinabulum in the refectionary or dormitory; and add another bell, called corrigianacula, rung at the time of giving discipline, to call the monks to be scoured. The cymbalum is said to have been rung in the cloister, to call the monks to meals.

From the researches of a writer who has paid particular attention to this subject, we learn that bells frequently bore such inscriptions as the following:

Funera plango, Fulgara frango, Sabatta pango, Excito lentos, Dissipio ventes, Paco eructos.

In the little sanctuary at Westminster, King Edward III. erected a clocher, and placed in it bells for the use of St Stephen's chapel, round the largest of which were cast in the metal these words:

King Edward made me thirtie thousand weight and three. Take me down and wey mee, and more you shall fynd mee.

But these bells having been ordered to be taken down in the reign of Henry VIII., some one wrote underneath with a coal:

But Henry the eight Will halt me of my weight.

This last distich alludes to a fact mentioned by Stowe in his Survey of London, that near to St Paul's school stood a clocher in which were four bells called Jesus's Bells, the greatest in all England, against which Sir Miles Partridge staked a hundred pounds, and won them of King Henry VIII. at a cast of dice. Nevertheless, in foreign countries there were bells of greater magnitude. In the steeple of the great church at Rouen, in Normandy, was a bell with this inscription:

Je suis George d'Ambois, Qui trente cinquie milles pois. Mais lui qui me pesera Trente six mille me trouvra.

But it was probably destroyed when the greater part of the magnificent edifice containing it was consumed by fire.

It is a common tradition that the bells of King's College chapel, in the university of Cambridge, were brought by Henry V. from some church in France soon after the battle of Agincourt. They were taken down and were afterwards sold to a bell-founder in Whitechapel, who melted them down.

The various uses of bells have been summed up in the following old distich:

Lando Deum verum, plebea voce, congrego clerum, Defunctos ploro, pestem fugo, festa decoro.

Matthew Paris observes, that anciently the use of bells was prohibited in time of mourning; at present, however, the tolling of them forms one of the principal ceremonies of interment. Mabillon adds, that it was an ancient custom to ring bells for persons about to expire, to advertise the people to pray for them. The passing bell, indeed, was anciently rung for two purposes; one, to bespeak the prayers of all good Christians for a soul just departing; the other, to drive away the evil spirits who were supposed to stand near the bed of the dying, or about the house, ready to seize their prey, or at least to molest and terrify the soul in its passage.

By the ringing of the bell,—for Durandus informs us that evil spirits are greatly afraid of bells,—they were kept aloof; and the soul, like a hunted hare, gained the start, or had what is by sportsmen called lane. This dislike of spirits to bells is mentioned in the Golden Legend by Wynkyn de Worde. "It is said, the evil spirytes that ben in the regyon of thyare, double moche when they here the belles rongen: and this is the cause why the belles ben rongen when it thondreth, and whan grete tempestes and outrages of wether happen, to the ende that the feinds and wycked spirytes shold be abashed and fle, and cease of the movyngne of tempestes." Lobineau observes, that the custom of ringing bells at the approach of thunder is of some antiquity; but that the design was not so much to shake the air, and so dissipate the thunder, as to call the people to church to pray that the parish might be preserved from that terrible meteor.

In Roman Catholic times bells were baptized and anointed oleo chrismati; they were also exorcised and blessed by the bishop, from a belief that, when these ceremonies were performed, they had power to drive the devil out of the air, to calm tempests, to extinguish fires, and to recreate even the dead. The ritual for these ceremonies is contained in the Roman pontifical; and it is still usual in such baptisms to give to bells the name of some saint. In Chauncy's History of Hertfordshire there is a relation of the baptism of a set of bells in Italy, which was performed with great ceremony a short time before that book was written. The bells of the parish church of Winnington, in Bedfordshire, had each its name cast about the verge, with these rhyming hexameters:

Nomina Campanis hae indita sunt quoque nostris. 1. Hoc signum Petri palatur nomine Christi. 2. Nomen Magdalene campana sonat melode. 3. Sit nomen Domini benedictum semper in eum. 4. Musa Raphaelis sonat auribus Immanuelis. 5. Sam Ross palata mundique Maria vocata.

By an old chartulary, it appears that the bells of the priory of Little Dunmow, in Essex, were, in the year 1501, new-cast, and baptized by the following names:

Prima in honore Sancti Michaëlis Archangeli. Secunda in honore S. Johannis Evangelisti. Tertia in honore S. Johannis Baptistæ. Quarta in honore Assumptionis beatæ Mariæ. Quinta in honore sanctæ Trinitatis, et omnium sanctorum.

The bells of Oseney Abbey, near Oxford, which were very famous, had the respective names of Douce, Clement, Austin, Hautecter, or rather Hautecler, Gabriel, and John.

Nankin, in China, was anciently celebrated for the largeness of its bells. But their enormous weight brought down the tower which contained them. One of these bells was nearly twelve English feet in height, seven and a half in diameter, and twenty-three in circumference, its figure cylindric, except a swelling in the middle, and the thickness of the metal about the edges, seven inches. From the dimensions, its weight was computed at 50,000 pounds. These bells were cast about four centuries ago. They were designated the hanger (tchoua), the eater (che), the sleeper (chou), the will (fi). Father le Comte adds, that there are seven other bells in Pekin cast in the reign of Yoou, each of which weighs 120,000 pounds. But the sound of even the largest Chinese bell is very poor, owing to the circumstance of its being struck with a clapper of wood, instead of iron. The bells of China, however, are far exceeded by those of Moscow. One presented by Czar Beris Godunoff to the cathedral weighs 288,000 pounds, and the great bell of Moscow cast in 1653 by order of the Empress Anne, and still remaining on the ground, is computed to weigh 443,772 pounds. It is 19 feet high, and has a marginal circumference of 63 feet 11 inches English. In England the heaviest bell is that made for York Minster in 1845, which weighs 27,000 pounds, but is not more than 7 feet 7 inches in diameter. The Great Tom of Oxford weighs 17,000 pounds; the Great Tom of Lincoln weighs 12,000 pounds; the great bell of St Paul's in London is 11,500 pounds, and has a diameter of 9 feet, or more than 28 feet in circumference.

The practice of ringing bells in change, or regular peals, is said to be peculiar to England. The custom seems to have commenced in the time of the Saxons, and to have been common before the Conquest. The tolling of a bell is nothing more than the production of sound by a stroke of the clapper against the side of the bell, the bell itself being in a pendent position and at rest. But in ringing, the bell is elevated to a horizontal position, so that, by means of a wheel and a rope, the clapper strikes forcibly on one side as it ascends, and on the other side in its return downwards, pro- ducing at each stroke a sound. In England the ringing of bells is reduced to a system, and peals have been composed which bear the names of the inventor.

Electrical Bells are used in a variety of entertaining experiments by electricians. The apparatus, which is originally of German invention, consists of three small bells suspended from a narrow plate of metal, the two outermost by chains, and that in the middle, from which a chain passes to the floor, by a silken string. Two small knobs of brass are also suspended by silken strings, one on each side of the bell in the middle, which serve for clappers. When this apparatus is connected with an electrified conductor, the outermost bells suspended by the chains will be charged, attract the clappers, and be struck by them. The clappers, becoming electrified, will likewise be repelled by these bells, and attracted by the middle bell, and discharge themselves upon it by means of the chain extending to the floor. After this they will be again attracted by the outermost bells, and thus, by striking the bells alternately, occasion a ringing, which may be continued at pleasure. Flashes of light will be seen in the dark between the bells and clappers, and if the electrification be strong, the discharge will be made without actual contact, and the ringing will cease.

Bell, Andrew, D.D., a clergyman of the English Church, who is well known for his philanthropic efforts in the cause of education, and more particularly for his success in extending the monastical system of instruction in schools. He was the projector and founder of those admirable institutions called national schools; and the author of An Experiment in Education at the Male Asylum, Madras; and of Instructions for conducting Schools on the Madras system, &c., &c. Dr Bell was born at St Andrews in 1753, and received his education in the university there. Some of his early years were spent in America; and he was afterwards chaplain to Fort St George, and minister of St Mary's at Madras. During his residence in the East Indies he acquired considerable property; which, together with some lucrative preferments in England, enabled him to bequeath no less than £120,000 in support of national institutions and public charities. This benevolent man died at Cheltenham in 1832, and his remains were interred in Westminster Abbey.

To the liberality of Dr Bell St Andrews is indebted for the foundation of Madras College.

Bell, Benjamin, an eminent surgeon, born at Dumfries in 1749. He studied at Edinburgh under the celebrated Monro, and combined with the office of head surgeon to the Edinburgh Infirmary an extensive practice in that city. He was the author of several standard works on surgery, among which may be noticed, A Treatise on Ulcers, and A System of Surgery. He died in 1806.

Bell, Sir Charles, K.H., an eminent anatomist, physiologist, and surgeon, son of the Rev. William Bell, a clergyman of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, was born at Edinburgh in November 1774. Having studied at the High School and university of that city, he devoted himself at an early age to the study of anatomy, under his brother Mr John Bell, who was twelve years older, and who had already laid the foundation of his fame as an anatomist and a surgeon. Under the guidance of this enlightened teacher, Charles Bell soon gave evidence of the talents which seem to have been inherited by every member of his family. While yet a pupil, he published the first volume of his System of Dissections, illustrated by engravings from his own drawings. On the 1st August 1799, he was admitted a member of the College of Surgeons, and consequently became one of the surgeons of the Royal Infirmary; for all the members of that college were then in rotation surgeons of the hospital. His knowledge of anatomy, and the admirable use of his hands, exhibited both in his dissections and his drawings, were already conspicuous; and his operations were distinguished by their dexterity and simplicity. He eagerly availed himself of the opportunities afforded by his attendance in the infirmary to improve his knowledge of pathology, and, with that view, invented a method of representing morbid parts in models, some of which are still preserved in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. About this time a controversy arose respecting the medical attendance in the Royal Infirmary, which terminated in the exclusion of several of the surgeons, amongst whom was Charles Bell. In 1804 he offered to pay £100 a-year, and to transfer for the use of the students the museum he had collected, on condition that he should be "allowed to stand by the bodies when dissected in the theatre of the infirmary, and to make notes and drawings of the diseased appearances;" but this proposal was rejected. In 1806 he removed to London, where he immediately commenced a course of lectures on anatomy and surgery, and rapidly rose to distinction.

Previous to his departure from Edinburgh he had written his work on the Anatomy of Expression, which was published shortly after his arrival in London, and immediately attracted attention. Both as an artist and as a physiologist he had felt the want of some philosophical explanation of the rationale of expression; of those muscular movements which are the natural external indications of the passions and emotions of the mind; and perhaps no other man was so well qualified to supply the deficiency. But he did not confine himself to the illustration of what is useful to the artist; he also explained how an acquaintance with the anatomy of expression might be available to the surgeon or the physician in distinguishing the nature and extent of some important diseases. Independent of its intrinsic merit, this work has another interest; for there is reason to believe that his inquiries into the functions of the nerves in connection with the anatomy of expression led him to prosecute those investigations which terminated in the most remarkable anatomical discovery of our time.

In the same manner as it had been taught before the discoveries of Harvey, that there was a flux and reflux of the blood in the arteries and veins, so it was taught, before the discoveries of Bell, that the same nerves transmitted the mandate of the will from the sensorium to the organs of voluntary motion, and likewise carried to the sensorium intelligence of the condition of their extremities or sensation; and that, in some mysterious manner, these two impulses might be simultaneously communicated along the same chord in opposite directions, without impairing the efficiency of either. This doctrine, which now appears to be startling, continued to be taught, or was left to be inferred, by every anatomical teacher in Europe for at least a year after Sir Charles Bell had announced—in letters still extant, bearing the London and Edinburgh post-marks of the 5th and 8th December 1807—his ideas on the nervous system. To him we owe the discovery that no one nerve serves the double purpose of ministering both to motion and to sensation—that the spinal nerves and the fifth nerve of the brain, which had been regarded each as one nerve, consisted each of two distinct nerves connected with different portions of the brain, inclosed in one sheath for the convenience of distribution, but performing different functions in the animal economy, corresponding with the different portions of the brain to which they could be traced—the one conveying the mandates of the will from the sensorium, the other conveying to the sensorium intelligence of the condition of distant parts or sensation—that, as the arteries carry the blood from the heart, and the veins carry it to the heart, so one set of nerves carries the impulses of volition from the brain, and another carries the impulses of sensation to the brain—that the brain is divided, together with the spinal marrow which is prolonged from it, into separate parts, ministering respectively to the distinct functions of motion and sensation—and that the origin of the nerves from one or other of these sources seems to endow them with the particular property of the division whence they spring. Such were the leading features of Bell's great discovery, the greatest in the physiology of the nervous system for twenty centuries, and one of the most remarkable that the history of anatomy has to record.

For this discovery the Royal Society of London awarded him the first annual medal given by George IV. in 1829; and when a new order of knighthood was instituted on the accession of the late king to the throne, Bell was amongst the first who were invested. This was the only public reward he received, and he had merited it by the services he rendered to the wounded after the battles of Corunna and Waterloo, if he had never rendered any other. On both of these occasions he had proceeded to the scene of action, relinquishing for the time his professional avocations in London.

Of his various writings on the practice of different branches of his profession, it is sufficient to say that they place him in the highest class of our writers on surgery. But there is another series of his works, which, of all his labours, afforded him the greatest pleasure. In his treatise on animal mechanics, written by desire of the Society for Propagating Useful Knowledge, he embodied the substance of some of his lectures on the evidences of design to be found in the anatomy of the human body, which had attracted admiring crowds to the College of Surgeons. These views had been deeply impressed upon his mind, and the success with which he illustrated them probably pointed him out to the executors of the late Earl of Bridgewater as a fit person to maintain a part in that great argument which it was the purpose of that nobleman's bequest to have published. Sir Charles's contribution was the admirable treatise on the Hand. Still following out this favourite subject of his contemplation, he associated himself with Lord Brougham in the illustration of Dr Paley's Natural Theology, published in 1836, and contributed some of the most interesting of these illustrations.

This most estimable and distinguished man died suddenly on the 29th April 1842, at Hollow Park, in Worcestershire.

Bell, George Joseph, brother of the preceding, was born at Edinburgh on the 20th of March 1770. At the age of eight he entered the High School, but he received no university education further than attending Tytler's lectures on civil history, Stewart's course of moral philosophy, and Hume's lectures on the law of Scotland. He became a member of the Faculty of Advocates in 1791, and was one of the earliest and most attached friends of Francis Jeffrey. It was by his counsel and encouragement that the distinguished critic was persuaded to persevere in his professional career at a time when his prospects of success at the bar were dark and discouraging. In 1804 he published a Treatise on the Law of Bankruptcy in Scotland, in 2 vols. 8vo, which was gradually enlarged in future editions, till at length a fifth edition was published in 1826, in 2 vols. 4to, under the title of Commentaries on the Law of Scotland and on the Principles of Mercantile Jurisprudence—an institutional work of the very highest excellence, which has guided the judicial deliberations of his own country till the present time, and has had its value acknowledged by no less jurists than Story and Kent. In 1821 he was unanimously elected professor of law in the university of Edinburgh; and in 1831 he was appointed to one of the principal clerkships in the Supreme Court. He was in 1833 placed at the head of a commission to inquire into the expediency of making various improvements in the Scottish bankruptcy law; and in consequence of the reports of the commissioners, chiefly drawn up by himself, many beneficial alterations have been made in this department of the law. He died at Hull on the 23rd September 1843.

Bell, Henry, an ingenious mechanic, well known for his successful application of steam-power to the propulsion of ships, was born at Torphichen in Linlithgowshire, in 1767. Having received the ordinary education of a parish school, he was apprenticed to his uncle, a mill-wright; and, after qualifying himself as a ship-modeler at Borrowstounness, went to London, where he found employment under Rennie, the celebrated engineer. Returning to Scotland in 1790, he first settled as a carpenter at Glasgow, and afterwards removed to Helensburgh, on the Firth of Clyde, where his wife superintended a large inn, together with the public baths, while he pursued his mechanical projects, and also found occasional employment as an engineer. It was not until January 1812 that he gave a practical solution of the difficulties which had beset all previous experimenters, by producing a steamboat of about twenty-five tons, propelled by an engine of three-horse power, at a speed of seven miles an hour. A particular account of this vessel, which he named the "Comet," as well as of the experiments of his predecessors in the same line, will be found under the head Steam Navigation. It will there be seen that, although the honour of priority, by about four years, is admitted to belong to Robert Fulton, an American engineer, it appears to admit of no doubt that Fulton had received very material assistance in the construction of his vessel from Bell and others in this country. The latter days of this ingenious man were rendered comfortable by a handsome sum subscribed for him among the citizens of Glasgow; and he also received from the trustees of the river Clyde a pension of L100 a-year. He died at Helensburgh, November 14, 1830.

Bell, John, of Antemmony, a Scottish traveller in the first half of the last century. He was born in 1691, and was educated for the medical profession, in which he took the degree of M.D. In 1714 he set out for St Petersburg, where, through the introduction of a countryman, he was nominated medical attendant to Valensky, recently appointed to the Persian embassy, with whom he travelled from 1715 to 1722, through Russia, Turkey, Persia, and China. He had scarcely rested from this last journey, when he was summoned to attend Peter the Great in his perilous expedition to Derbend and the Caspian Gates. The narrative of this journey he has enriched with interesting particulars of the public and private life of that remarkable prince. In 1738 he was sent by the Russian government on a mission to Constantinople, to which, accompanied by a single attendant who spoke Turkish, he proceeded in the midst of winter, and all the horrors of a barbarous warfare; and in May 1738 he returned to St Petersburg. It appears that after this he was several years established as a merchant at Constantinople, where he married in 1746. In the following year he retired to his estate of Antemmony in Scotland, where he lived in ease and affluence, beloved by his neighbours and respected by all who knew him. He died in 1780.

His travels, published at Glasgow, in 2 vols. 4to, 1763, were speedily translated into French, and widely circulated in Europe.

Bell, John, an eminent anatomist and surgeon, was born at Edinburgh May 12, 1763. He had the merit of being the first in Scotland who applied with success the science of anatomy to practical surgery. While still a young man, he established, in the face of much opposition, an anatomical theatre in Surgeon Square, where he attracted large audiences by his admirable lectures on anatomy, physiology, and surgery, in which he was assisted by his younger brother Charles. After his exclusion from the infirmary (to which reference has been made in the notice of Sir Charles Bell), Mr Bell ceased to lecture, and devoted his time to study and practice. He died at Rome in 1820, while on a tour in Italy for the benefit of his health. To great skill in his profession he united high and varied mental abilities and extensive learning. His principal works are the following:—Anatomy of the Human Body, 3 vols. 8vo, 1793-1802; Discourses on the Nature and Cure of Wounds, 2 vols. Svo, 1793-95; Principles of Surgery, 3 vols. Svo, 1801; and several volumes of Engravings illustrative of the Human Anatomy. His Observations on Italy were published by his widow in 1825.