Dion Ralph Bell

Short abstract

Tropical medicine specialist famed for his Lecture Notes

Dion Bell, who was reader in tropical medicine and honorary consultant physician at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, was an expert on the health problems of Far East prisoners of war, a showman of an educator, and a firearms and explosives enthusiast. He is best remembered outside Liverpool for Lecture Notes in Tropical Medicine, of which he wrote the first three editions singlehandedly and edited the fourth.

Figure 1.

His clinical interests were primarily in gastrointestinal disease, and research papers focused on parasitological and epidemiological aspects of schistosomiasis. As well as promoting the welfare of former Far East prisoners of war, he published numerous papers on both chronic strongyloidiasis and other infectious and non-infectious problems suffered as a result of their privation during captivity. He became a personal friend of many ex-POWs, and enjoyed legendary status among the Far East POW community, both for his pioneering research and his dogged support for them in pension claims.

Like all the best teachers, he was a great showman and his grand round presentations were occasionally enhanced with giant home made models of parasites and their vectors. Dion loved gadgets and was proud of a maze of pipes, tubes, and retorts constructed with one of his PhD students as a model for investigating the migration of schistosomal flukes around the biliary system.

A Yorkshireman by birth, Dion Bell qualified at Leeds. Two years of national service with the RAMC in Ghana whetted his appetite for the tropics, and after two further years in the Leeds medical professorial unit he obtained his MRCP and the Liverpool DTM&H. This was followed by posts in Ibadan (Nigeria) and Mwanza (Tanganyika), before his appointment as senior lecturer (1964-82), then reader (1982-91) at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

From this base he performed numerous consultancies for the World Health Organization and British Overseas Development Agency in north and sub-Saharan African countries, the Middle East, and Thailand, and helped to set up and run postgraduate courses in Bangkok, Uppsala, and Libya.

He had a fascination for firearms and explosives, and his large house in Liverpool had a small shooting range in the cellar.

He leaves a wife, Carol; three children; and four grandchildren.

Dion Ralph Bell, former reader in tropical medicine and honorary consultant physician Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (b 1931; q Leeds 1954; FRCP, FFCM, DTM&H), d 3 February 2005.