German-born Dr Frederick William Eurich is the man widely credited with finding a way of eradicating anthrax, known also as the "Bradford disease" or the "woolsorter's disease".

But it was a Bradford-born doctor who, decades earlier, did the pioneering work on the way the killer spores were transmitted to those employed in the wool trade.

And it was in all probability conversations which Dr Eurich, then at the start of his career, had in 1899 with Dr John H Bell, who was approaching the end of his, while the two men worked at Bradford Eye and Ear Hospital which inspired the younger man to pursue his researches.

That's the view of medical historian Dr Christine Alvin, of Thackley, who says that Dr Bell is understood to have introduced Dr Eurich to the first case of anthrax he had ever seen. She notes that Dr Bell's obituary in the Yorkshire Daily Observer, after his sudden death just a century ago at the age of 74, highlighted his work on anthrax, saying that "to him is undoubtedly due the credit for rousing attention to the fatal disease and for the introduction of precautions for rendering the manipulation of certain wools less dangerous."

The same newspaper also described "the immense debt under which the community labours for Dr Bell's quiet and efficient services to the public extending over a period of nearly 50 years."

Says Dr Alvin: "That was a fitting tribute to a doctor who had contributed so much to the lives of the working people of the city."

So who was he, this important figure from Bradford's past who last had a mention in the Telegraph & Argus when local historian Wade Hustwick wrote about him in his Bradford Characters series in 1960?

Hustwick actually remembered, as a young man living in the Manningham district, seeing Dr Bell in his long frock coat and silk hat going about his work. He was, in fact, family doctor to Hustwick's wife's parents.

"He was more than a physician; he was a family friend," he wrote.

John Henry Bell was born in 1832 in Goodmanend, which is now called Bridge Street, to a father who came from a Scottish farming family and a mother whose parents lived at Birks Hall, Bowling (grandfather William Murgatroyd was a wool stapler).

Being a sickly child, young John was sent for a few years to live on his other grandfather's Scottish farm. He perked up and returned, to be educated at Child's Academy in Chapel Fold, Westgate, before being placed, at the tender age of 14, with a Dr Corrie at Thornton to be trained for six years as a doctor.

At 20 he became an assistant to a doctor in Ripon, and then to a doctor in Leeds where he was able to attend lectures at Leeds Medical College.

In 1857, with his eye on the vacant post of house surgeon at Bradford Infirmary, the-then Mr Bell applied for permission to sit the examinations of the College of Surgeons, although he had studied for only two years instead of the required three. Permission granted, he went in the for examination the very next day and passed.

Unfortunately despite that he didn't get the Infirmary job, so instead he set up in practice at 172 Westgate, at the junction with Lumb Lane. He practised in that area (later from a house he had built after his marriage at the corner of Hallfield Road and Lumb Lane) until his death.

Bradford Infirmary might have turned Dr Bell down, but he soon obtained the post of Junior Medical Officer at the new Bradford Eye and Ear Institution set up by Dr Edward Bronner, was appointed honorary surgeon there in 1864 and became consultant surgeon in 1897. It was in that capacity that he met the young Dr Eurich, who joined the hospital's staff in 1899.

It was very early in his career, in 1857, that Dr Bell encountered a dramatic challenge, and rose to it. He was involved in the notorious case of the poisoned lozenges. A chemist's mistake resulted in arsenic being supplied to the confectioner, who made the lozenges in good faith. Five pounds of the sweets were sold in Bradford market on a Saturday night, and within a day 225 people were taken ill.

During the Sunday afternoon and evening Dr Bell and an assistant saw 60 patients. As soon as Dr Bell realised the cause of the outbreak he suggested that the bell man should be sent round to warn the public against eating any lozenges they might have bought.

There were 20 deaths, but without Dr Bell's prompt action there might have been many more.

Although Dr Bell held other important medical posts in Bradford in addition to his work at the Eye and Ear Hospital (which led to him becoming a distinguished ophthalmic surgeon) it was his investigation of anthrax that his Observer obituarist considered to be his most important work.

His interest began after the first case of the disease occurred in Bradford in 1877, killing its victim within 16 hours of the symptoms appearing.

By writing papers and giving lectures he raised public awareness of safer ways of handling wool and hair. However, as Wade Hustwick noted in 1960, it was well into the 20th century, after Dr Eurich had taken up the baton, that the remedy was discovered through proper disinfection.