John Bell (1763-1820): brother artist and anatomist

John Bell, brother-surgeon of Charles Bell, was, like Charles, an outstanding surgeon and a good artist. John was one of the few who illustrated his work with their own drawings in the days before audiovisual aids were available and without the benefit of reliable drawing aids, photography and computer-aided design. Charles, on the other hand, was the better artist and illustrated much of the normal anatomy of the nervous system. Each brother undertook extensive surgery of men who had been wounded in war; John Bell left us his engravings from the textbooks, more numerous perhaps than Charles, but Charles left us a series of oil paintings and watercolours in addition to the illustrations in his textbooks.