Henry Walter Bellew

Henry Walter Bellew (1834 to 1892) was an Indian-born British medical officer who served in Afghanistan and wrote widely about the region. Born at Nusserabad in India, he trained as a medical student at St George's Hospital in London, became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1855 and served in the Crimean War before entering the Bengal medical service as an assistant surgeon. He rose to surgeon in 1867 and deputy surgeon-general in 1881. He took part in the 1857 mission to Afghanistan, served as civil surgeon at Peshawar, accompanied a mission to Sistan in 1871 and joined the Second Yarkand Mission in 1873 and 1874. His medical work in Afghanistan reportedly spared the lives of the mission members when their fate was in question. He compiled a Pashto dictionary and grammar and wrote books on the Afghans and their country, as well as a history of cholera in India and a treatise on cholera, and he retired from service in 1886.