**2. Historical perspective**

James Douglas (1675–1742) in the eighteenth century gave the description of unilateral facial paralysis. However, Cornelis Stalpart van der Wiel in 1683 first clearly observed and recorded a case that was later described as Bell's palsy. Sir Charles Bell (1774–1842), Scottish surgeon anatomist, and First Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons, London, is credited with the first authentic description of the anatomy of the facial nerve and its association with the idiopathic peripheral facial palsy in 1821 [2].
