i 7 z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONT ELY. 



" general practitioner " has come to be one who avowedly fulfills 

 the functions of both. Indeed in our day it is common to take 

 degrees in both medicine and surgery, and thus practically to 

 unite these sub-professions. Meanwhile the two jointly have 

 become more clearly marked off from those who carry out their 

 orders. Down to recent times it was usual not only for a surgeon 

 to compound his own medicines, but a physician also had a dis- 

 pensary and sometimes a compounder : an arrangement which 

 still survives in country districts. Nowadays, however, both 

 medical and surgical practitioners in large places depute this part 

 of their business to chemists and druggists. 



But the apparent nonconformity to the evolutionary process 

 disappears if we go back to the earliest stages. The distinction 

 between doctor and surgeon is not one which has arisen by dif- 

 ferentiation, but is one which asserted itself at the outset. For 

 while both had to cure bodily evils, the one was concerned with 

 evils supposed to be supernatu rally inflicted, and the other with 

 evils that were naturally inflicted the one with diseases ascribed 

 to possessing demons, the other with injuries inflicted by human 

 beings, by beasts, and by inanimate bodies. Hence we naturally 

 find in the records of early civilizations more or less decided dis- 

 tinctions between the two. 



" The Brahmin was the physician ; but the important manual depart- 

 ment of the profession could not be properly exercised by the pure Brah- 

 min; and to meet this difficulty, at an early period, another caste was 

 formed, from the offspring of a Brahmin with a daughter of a Vaishya.*' 



There is evidence implying that the division existed in Egypt 

 before the Christian era ; and it is alleged that the Arabians sys- 

 tematically divided physics, surgery, and pharmacy into three 

 distinct professions. Among the Greeks, however, the separation 

 of functions did not exist : " the Greek physician was likewise a 

 surgeon" was likewise a compounder of his own medicines. 

 Bearing in mind these scattered indications yielded by early 

 societies, we must accept in a qualified way the statements re- 

 specting the distinctions between the two in mediaeval times 

 throughout Europe. When we remember that during the dark 

 ages the religious houses and priestly orders were the centers of 

 such culture and skill as existed, we may infer that priests and 

 monks acted in both capacities ; and that hence, at the beginning 

 of the fifth century, surgery "was not yet a distinct branch of the 

 practice of medicine." Still, it is concluded that clerics generally 

 abstained from practicing surgery, and simply superintended the 

 serious operations performed by their assistants : the reason 

 being perhaps, as alleged, that the shedding of blood by clerics 

 being interdicted, they could not themselves use the operating 



