Named after Scottish neurologist, anatomist, and anatomical artist Sir Charles Bell following his description of the syndrome in 1821, Bell’s palsy is an idiopathic peripheral facial nerve palsy (CN7) producing weakness of the unilateral upper and lower face. Though by definition, Bell’s palsy is idiopathic, recent studies have proposed various viral etiologies such as the herpes simplex virus, Epstein–Barr virus, and varicella-zoster virus. In a minority of cases, the infectious causes are obvious such as in Ramsay–Hunt syndrome and Lyme disease.