bell was one of the first physicians to combine the scientific study of neuroanatomy with clinical practice. in 1821, he described in the trajectory of the facial nerve and a disease, bell's palsy which led to the unilateral paralysis of facial muscles, in one of the classics of neurology, a paper delivered to the royal society entitled "on the nerves: giving an account of some experiments on their structure and functions, which lead to a new arrangement of the system."