Gordon Bell (surgeon)

Sir Francis Gordon Bell (13 September 1887 to 28 February 1970) was a New Zealand surgeon who held the chair of surgery at the University of Otago in Dunedin. Born on a sheep station on the Wairau River in Marlborough, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1910 with first class honours, and took his doctorate in 1912 with a thesis on the development and microscopic appearance of the occipital lobes of the brain. During the First World War he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in France, working in casualty clearing stations through the Somme and the major battles of 1917 and 1918, and he won the Military Cross. Back in Edinburgh he studied the development and appearance of testicular tumours, and two publications in 1925 were regarded as a significant contribution to understanding and classifying them. That year he took the Otago chair, promoted specialist surgical units within the university department, and supported the founding of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, of which he was a foundation fellow and president from 1947 to 1949. He retired in 1952, was knighted in 1953 and published his autobiography, Surgeon's Saga, in 1968.