“I love not man the less but nature more.”
He was fond of hunting and fishing and it was his custom each year to hunt big game in New Brunswick where he was often a guest at August Belmont’s private shooting preserve. Dr. Bell was also a member of the Chapleau Club in the Laurentians where he went for his fishing. His country home, Saraguay, was his residence during four months in the year for more than eighteen years. Here he maintained a fine breeding establishment of driving and saddle horses and was able to gratify the great pleasure his excellent stock afforded him, for he was a lover of a good horse.
No man ever more fully, however, recognized the duties and obligations of the profession or more conscientiously met them. The regard entertained for him by his professional brethren is indicated in the fact that Dr. C. E. Church termed him “the ablest surgeon in America,” while Dr. T. G. Roddick said, “the death of Dr. James Bell is a distinct loss to the medical and surgical profession. He was a man of marked ability, with conscientious devotion to his work, which earned him the respect of his fellows, as well as success amongst his patients. And he was not only respected by the profession throughout the country, but loved by his friends.” In comment upon his death the Montreal Gazette wrote, “One of the men who have done much for the advancement of the medical profession in Canada passed away yesterday when Dr. James Bell, in the ripe fullness of a useful career, was carried off by appendicitis. It was by a curious irony of fate that Dr. Bell died most unexpectedly at the Royal Victoria Hospital, in whose wards still lay many upon whom he had operated, and whose lives he had probably saved by his skill. For many years Dr. Bell had been recognized as one of Canada’s leading surgeons, in fact one of the greatest surgeons in abdominal work on this continent and his services were in great demand, not only in Montreal, but wherever the work of a skillful scientist whose immediate judgment and power might be efficacious to save human life, was needed. Day by day he had been working in the operating room of the Royal Victoria Hospital and the sick rooms of patients, in circumstances where a single mistake might mean loss of life. The strain was much greater than ordinary people could have imagined. He was one of those men who devoted themselves to their work so well and performed it so efficiently that there was no need to fight for prominence. His work was such that it inevitably grew. As his ability became known his services became more in demand and in a quiet and conscientious way he gradually became one of the recognized surgical authorities of his time and one of the busiest. Not only in Montreal but in many parts of Canada he was called upon wherever there was a stern fight against death, and frequently he was called to exercise his skill even farther afield in the United States. Those who knew him as either surgeon or as friend will remember him as one who knew his work and did it well, without thought of public recognition.”