title: Vital endowments: Sir Charles Bell and the history of some congenital abnormalities of the upper limb.
abstract: Born in Edinburgh in 1774 Sir Charles Bell, as a young man, studied anatomy and surgery in his hometown. There followed a distinguished career that culminated in his becoming the first professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the College of Surgeons in London. Renowned as a brilliant neuroanatomist he was invited, on the advice of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, to contribute one of eight volumes of a work on the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God as manifested in the Creation - known as the Bridgewater Treatises. 'The Hand its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing Design' was published in 1833 and it is an account of his considering the hand as a machine that has been engineered to exacting standards to interact with the environment in which we live. In it he expressed a deep understanding of the similarity of the structure of the upper limbs of the higher orders of animals. The similarity of the paddle of a turtle and a human hand with acrosymbrachydactyly is unmistakable. This congenital abnormality, given the eponymous title of Apert's syndrome, is one of a number of congenital abnormalities that have parallels in the animal kingdom. Others who have had similar syndromes named after them include Poland, Marfan, Streeter and a number of others. The life and times of these men and their contributions to medicine will be presented in this paper.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery and Anaesthesia, Wellington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Otago, New Zealand. alan.thurston@otago.ac.nz
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Thurston
mesh_terms: D000715:Anatomy / Q000266:history*; D004535:Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome / Q000266:history; D013502:General Surgery / Q000266:history*; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008382:Marfan Syndrome / Q000266:history; D013576:Syndactyly / Q000266:history; D006113:United Kingdom; D038062:Upper Extremity Deformities, Congenital / Q000266:history*