PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON. 195 



day &quot; dung of elephants, the left foot of a tortoise, liver of 

 a mole, powdered excrement of rats, &c.&quot; Hence a receipt 

 given in Vicary s work on anatomy, The Englishman s 

 Treasure, &c. (1641) &quot; Five spoonfuls of knave child 

 urine of an innocent.&quot; Hence &quot; the belief that epilepsy 

 may be cured by drinking water out of the skull of a sui 

 cide, or by tasting the blood of a murderer; &quot; that &quot; moss 

 growing on a human skull, if dried, powdered, and taken 

 as snuff, will cure the Head-ach; &quot; and that the halter and 

 chips from the gibbet on which malefactors have been exe 

 cuted or exposed have medicinal properties. And there pre 

 vails in our own days among the uncultured and the young 

 a similarly-derived notion. They betray an ingrained men 

 tal association between the nastiness of a medicine and its 

 efficiency: so much so, indeed, that a medicine which is 

 pleasant is with difficulty believed to be a medicine. 



669. As with evolution at large, as with organic evolu 

 tion, and as with social evolution throughout its other di 

 visions, secondary differentiations accompany the primary 

 differentiation. While the medical agency separates from 

 the ecclesiastical agency, there go on separations within 

 the medical agency itself. 



The most pronounced division is that between physicians 

 and surgeons. The origin of this has been confused in vari 

 ous ways, and seems now the more obscure because there 

 has been of late arising not a further distinction between 

 the two but a fusion of them. All along they have had a 

 common function in the treatment of ordinary disorders 

 and in the uses of drugs; and the &quot; general practitioner&quot; 

 has come to be one who avowedly fulfils 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 be 

 come more clearly marked off from those who carry out their 

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



