Thomas Bell

This article is about the doctor and zoologist Thomas Bell; for other persons see Thomas Bell (disambiguation) .

Thomas Bell (born October 11, 1792 in Poole , † March 13, 1880 in Selborne ) was a British doctor and zoologist .

Thomas Bell

Life

Thomas Bell was a son of the doctor of the same name Thomas Bell and his wife Susan Gosse. He attended school in his hometown and later in Shaftesbury before beginning his studies at Guy's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital in 1813 . In 1815 he joined the Royal College of Surgeons as a member. In 1817 he succeeded Joseph Fox (1776-1816) as a dentist at Guy's Hospital, where he began to give lectures on comparative anatomy. Bell began using amalgam fillings in his practice around 1819 .

In 1815 Bell became a member of the Linnaeus Society and in 1817 also a member of the Geological Society . He was particularly interested in zoology. In 1824 he founded the Zoological Journal together with John George Children (1777-1852), James de Carle Sowerby and George Brettingham Sowerby (1780-1854), of which a total of 5 volumes were published by 1835. He also published his first descriptions of new Reptiles species, such as those of North African spiny-tailed lizards , the three-striped box turtle ( Cuora trifasciata ) and that of the Galapagos Islands originating Marine Iguana ( Amblyrhynchus cristatus ).

On January 10, 1828 he became a member of the Royal Society for which he worked from 1848 to 1853, first as secretary and twice as vice-president (1853-1854 and 1858-1860).

With a monograph ( A Monograph of the Testudinata ), originally laid out in 8 volumes and illustrated with 40 plates by James de Carle Sowerby and Edward Lear , he attempted from 1832 to 1836 to summarize all known living and extinct turtles in one work. In 1836 he became professor of zoology at King's College London , a position he held until his death. In the book A history of British Quadrupeds published that year Bell dealt with the British terrestrial vertebrates . In the second edition that followed a year later, chapters on whales were added. A history of British reptiles followed in 1839, a work in which he finally turned to his specialty, reptiles .

When Charles Darwins returned to London after his trip with the HMS Beagle at the end of 1836, Bell showed particular interest in his reptiles. He was finally asked by Darwin to edit the reptiles as the fifth volume for the planned work The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle . However, the final completion of this part was delayed due to a prolonged illness of Bell.

From 1844 to 1859, Bell was the first president of the Ray Society, newly formed in 1844 . In the same year he became an honorary member of the Royal College of Surgeons . With the work A History of the British Stalk-eyed Crustacea , published from 1844 to 1853 , he wrote a standard work on British crustaceans . In 1848 Bell became secretary of the London Linnaeus Society of which he was finally president from 1853 to 1861. During his presidency, society's gatherings became more lively again. Under his presidency on July 1, 1858, under the title On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection read two works by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace on the theory of evolution through natural selection .

Bell was elected a member of various foreign scientific societies. On May 24, 1853, he became a member of the Leopoldina as "Linnaeus II" . He was a corresponding member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia , the Boston Society of Natural History , the Société d'Histoire de Naturelle of Paris and a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences .

In 1866 Bell bought the house in Selborne called "The Wakes" from Gilbert Whites (1720-1793) great-niece and retired there. In 1877 he published an expanded edition of White's The Natural History of Selborne .

Frederick William Hope (1797–1862) acquired Bell's collection of tortoises and turtles, crocodiles and lizards in 1862 and donated them to Oxford University . In the same year John Westwood (1805-1893) bought Bell's collection of crustaceans and bequeathed them to Oxford University. Today these parts of his collection can be seen in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History .

Fonts

Works

• The anatomy, physiology, and diseases of the teeth S. Highley, London 1829; on-line
• A Monograph of the Testudinata . S. Highley, London 1832-1836; on-line
• A history of British Quadrupeds . J. van Voorst, London 1836
• A history of British Quadrupeds including the Cetacea: Illustrated by nearly 200 Woodcuts 2nd edition, Van Voorst, London 1837; on-line
• A history of British reptiles . J. Van Voorst, London 1839; on-line
• The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle . Reptiles . Smith, Elder & Co., London 1842–1843
• A History of the British Stalk-eyed Crustacea . London 1844-1853; on-line
• Catalog of Crustacea in the Collections of the British Museum. Part I: Leucosiadae . Taylor and Francis, London 1855
• A monograph of the fossil malacostracous Crustacea of ​​Great Britain. Part I. Crustace of the London Clay . Palaeontographical Society, London 1857
• Monograph of the Fossil Malacostracous Crustacea of ​​Great Britain. Part II. Crustacea of ​​the Gault and Greensand . Palaeontographical Society, London 1862
• The Thomas Bell Library. ": The Catalog of 15000 Volumes of Scarce & Curious Printed Books and Unique Manuscripts Comprised in the Unrivaled Library Collected by the Late Thomas Bell ... Between the Year 1797 & 1860, which Will be Sold by Auction .. . by Mr. Geo. Hardcastle on Monday, Oct. 15 ... , JG Foster, 1860; online

Journal articles (selection)

• Description of a new species of Emarginula . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 1, pp. 53-53, W. Phillips, London 1824
• Remarks on the animal nature of sponges . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 1, p. 202, W. Phillips, London 1824
• Note on the supposed identity of the genus Isodon of Say with Capromys . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 1, pp. 230-231, W. Phillips, London 1824
• Description of a new species of lizard . (Uromastyx acanthinurus) In: Zoological Journal . Volume 1, pp. 457-460, W. Phillips, London 1825
• On a new genus of Iguanidae . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 2, pp. 204-208, W. Phillips, London 1825 online
• Observations on the structure of the throat in the genus Anolis . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 2, pp. 11-14, W. Phillips, London 1826; on-line
• A monograph of the tortoises having a movable sternum with remarks on their arrangement and affinities . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 2, pp. 299-310, W. Phillips, London 1826; on-line
• Description of a new species of Terrapene with further observation on T. carolina and T. maculata . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 2, pp. 484-486, W. Phillips, London 1826; on-line
• On Leptophina, a group of serpents comprising the genus Dryinus of Merrem and a newly formed genus proposed to be named Leptophis . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 2, pp. 322-329, W. Phillips, London 1826; on-line
• On the structure and use of the submaxillary odoriferous gland in the genus crocodilus . In Philosophical Transactions . Pp. 132-138, W. Nicol, London 1827
• On two new genera of land tortoises . In: Transactions of the Linnean Society . Volume 15, pp. 392-401, R. Taylor, London 1827; on-line
• Descriptions of three new species of land tortoises . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 3, pp. 419-421, W. Phillips, London 1827
• On Hydraspis, a new genus of freshwater tortoises, of the family Emydidae . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 3, pp. 511-513, W. Phillips, London 1827
• Characters of the order, families, and genera of the Testudinata . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 3, pp. 513-516, W. Phillips, London 1828
• Descriptions of a new species of Anolius, and a new species of Amphisbaena collected by WS MacLeay, in the Island of Cuba . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 3, W. Phillips, London 1828; on-line
• Description of a new species of Agama, brought from the Columbia River by Mr. Douglass . In: Transactions of the Linnean Society Volume 16, pp. 105-107, Linnean Society, London 1829; on-line
• Description of a new species of Phalangista . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 4, R. Taylor, London 1829; on-line
• Description of a new genus of Reptilia of the family Scincidae . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 4, p. 393, W. Phillips, London 1833
• Description of a new genus of Reptilia of the family of Amphisbaenidae . In: Zoological Journal . Volume 5, pp. 391-393 W. Phillips, London 1835
• Observations on the neck of the three-toed sloth, Bradypus tridactylus, Linn . In: Transactions of the Zoological Society of London , Volume 1, p. 116, London 1835
• Observations on the neck of the three-toes sloth, Bradypus tridactylus, Linn. In: Transactions of the Zoological Society of London . Volume 1, pp. 113-116, plate 17, London 1835
• Observations on the genus Cancer of Dr. Leach (Platycarcinus, Latr.) In: Transactions of the Zoological Society of London . Volume 1, pp. 335-342, Tefeln 43-47, London 1835
• Some account of the Crustacea of ​​the coasts of South America descriptions of new genera and species: Founded principally on the collections obtained by Mr. Cuming and Mr. Miller . In: Transactions of the Zoological Society of London Volume 2, pp. 39-66 London 1835; on-line
• Zoological observations on a new fossil species of Chelydra from Oeningen . In: Transactions of the Geological Society of London . Series 2, Volume 4, pp. 379-381
• On the thalassina Emerii, a fossil crustacean . In: Proceedings of the Geological Society . Volume 4, pp. 360-362. London 1844
• On the Thalassina Emerii, a fossil Crustacean, forwarded by Mr. WS Macleay, from New Holland . In: Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society Volume 1, No. 1, pp. 93-94, 1845
• Horae carcinologicae, or notices of Crustacea. I: a monograph of the Leucosiadae . In: Annals and Magazine of Natural History . Volume 16, pp. 361-367, 1855
• Horae carcinologicae, or notices of Crustacea. I: a monograph of the Leucosiadae . In: Transactions of the Linnean Society . Volume 21, pp. 277-314, panels 30-34, 1855; on-line

literature

• Samuel Wilks, George Thomas Bettany: A Biographical History of Guy's Hospital . Ward, Lock, Bowden & Co, London 1892
• Charles Knight: Biography: Or, Third Division of "The English Encyclopedia" . Bradbury, Agnew & Co, London 1856-1872, 7 volumes, Volume 1, p. 618

Web links

• Correspondence with Charles Darwin
• Entry to bell; Thomas (1792-1880) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
• List of reptile species described by Thomas Bell in the Reptile Database

Individual evidence

1. ^ Adrian Desmond, James Moore: Darwin . List Verlag, Munich Leipzig 1991, p. 263. ISBN 3-471-77338-X
2. ↑ Charles Darwin to Smith, Elder & Co. , January 14, 1843, Letter 658 ( Memento of the original of July 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in The Darwin Correspondence Project (accessed August 15, 2008) 
3. ↑ Desmond / Moore, p. 533
4. ^ Johann Ferdinand Neigebaur : History of the Imperial Leopoldino-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists during the second century of its existence . Friedrich Frommann, 1860; on-line
5. ^ Oxford University Museum of Natural History: Learning more ... Thomas Bell . PDF online (accessed August 15, 2008)