PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON. 197 



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

 beginning of the fifth century, surgery &quot; was not yet a dis 

 tinct branch &quot; of the practice of medicine. Still, it is con 

 cluded that clerics generally abstained from practising 

 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 inter 

 dicted, they could not themselves use the operating knife. 

 And this may have been a part cause for the rise of those 

 secular medical practitioners who, having been educated in 

 the monastic schools, were, as barber-surgeons, engaged by 

 the larger towns in the public service. Probably this differ 

 entiation was furthered by the papal edicts forbidding eccle 

 siastics from practising medicine in general; for, as is 

 argued, there may hence have arisen that compromise which 

 allowed the clergy to prescribe medicines while they aban 

 doned surgical practice into the hands of laymen. 



Along with this leading differentiation, confused in the 

 ways described, there have gone on, within each division, 

 minor differentiations. Some of these arose and became 

 marked in early stages. In Ancient India 

 &quot; A special branch of surgery was devoted to rhinoplasty, or opera 

 tions for improving deformed ears and noses, and forming new ones.&quot; 



That the specialization thus illustrated was otherwise 



marked, is implied by the statement that &quot; no less than 127 



surgical instruments were described in &quot; the works of the 



ancient surgeons ; and by the statement that in the Sanskrit 



period 



&quot;The number of medical works and authors is extraordinarily large. 



The former are either systems embracing the whole domain of the 



science, or highly special investigations of single topics.&quot; 



So was it, too, in ancient Egypt. Describing the results, 



Herodotus writes : 



&quot;Medicine is practised among them [the Egyptians] on apian of 

 separation; each physician treats a single disorder, and no more: 

 thus the country swarms with medical practitioners, some undertaking 



