Matters of Priority: Herbert Mayo, Charles Bell and Discoveries in the Nervous System

Between 1822 and the late 1830s a highly personal priority dispute was fought between the celebrated surgeon and anatomist Sir Charles Bell and his ex-student Herbert Mayo. The dispute was over the motor and sensory functions of the Vth and VIIth cranial nerves. Over the course of the 1820s and the 1830s, the competing claims of Bell and Mayo were presented in newspapers, journals, and textbooks. But by the time of Bell’s death in 1842, Mayo had been discredited, a seemingly tragic footnote in the history of nervous discovery. And yet, with the benefit of hindsight, Bell’s case was at best disingenuous. His success was not due to any intrinsic scientific merit in his argument, but rather his ability to create a narrative that undermined the credibility of Mayo. However, only when Mayo’s public performances elided with Bell’s descriptions did this ploy succeed. As a result, the dispute illuminates the importance of credibility to the creation of an idealised scientific medical practitioner.