"... was a successful operator and during many years was more employed than any surgeon in Scotland". A fellow surgeon John Campbell, who had been apprenticed to Bell, went so far as to suggest that "...no one could die contented without having consulted Benjamin Bell."

On 12 April 1782 Bell was one of the founding members of the Harveian Society of Edinburgh and served as President in 1792. On 17 November 1783 he was one of the founding Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.