August 17, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



251 



gaged in the practice of medicine and sur- 

 gery. This commonalty of physicians and 

 surgeons drew up elaborate regulations for 

 the guidance of its members in the exercise 

 of their profession, and sought to improve 

 the standard of their knowledge by requiring 

 them to pass examinations before they could 

 be admitted to practice ; but it cannot have 

 been a great success, for in a few years all 

 traces of it disappear, and the previous cha- 

 otic state of affairs is re-established . About 

 1 423 the Guild of Surgeons is heard of as a 

 separate body making stringent professional 

 regulations for its members, while in 1461 

 the Barbers' Company obtained a Royal 

 Charter, in which various rights and privi- 

 leges concerning the mystery or craft of 

 surgery were confirmed to it, without any 

 mention of the Guild of Surgeons. But 

 the latter was far from extinct. In 1492 it 

 obtained a grant of arms, the original of 

 which is still in the Barbers-hall, and in 

 1511 it was concerned in getting an Act 

 passed which restricted any one from prac- 

 ticing in the City of London or within 

 seven miles of it unless examined and ap- 

 proved by the Bishop of London, or the 

 Dean of St. Paul's assisted by professional 

 assessors. But the surgeons got little 

 thanks for their pains ; they were accused 

 of ' minding only their own lucres ' and 

 vexing ' divers honest persons, as well men 

 as women, whom God hath endued with 

 that knowledge of the nature, kind and 

 operation of certain herbs, roots and waters, ' 

 and in the end the statute was so modified 

 as to be practically, abrogated. In 1540 

 the surgeons and the barbers were united 

 into one company, both, as the Act says, 

 exercising surgery, but the latter incor- 

 porated, the former not. The privileges 

 granted to the barbers by their charter 

 were confirmed and others were added — 

 e. g. , they were allowed to take the ' Bodyes 

 of ffoure condemned persons yerely for 

 Anatomies,' while it was also enacted that 



" no manner of person within the City of 

 London, suburbs and one mile therefrom 

 using any barbery shall occupy any surgery, 

 letting of blood, or any other thing belong- 

 ing to surgery except drawing of teeth, nor 

 any practising of surgery shall use any 

 shaving." This shows clearly that, though 

 the company was a union of the two 

 bodies, the two professions were not merged 

 together. At the same time constant efforts 

 were evidently needed to keep them dis- 

 tinct, and the surgeon part of the company 

 was often troubled by attempts on the part 

 of the barbers to usurp its functions. But 

 the arrangement subsisted for over 200 

 years, in spite of monetary embarrass- 

 ments, difficulties in coping with quackery, 

 and disputes with the physicians, who ob- 

 jected to the surgeons giving internal medi- 

 cines and declined to consult with them. 

 In time, however, it began to be felt that 

 the ' union of the surgeons with the per- 

 sons altogether ignorant of the science or 

 faculty of surgery (as the Barbers are) ' 

 was not an advantage, and in 1684 a peti- 

 tion was presented for the dissolution of 

 the company. This was unsuccessful, and 

 it was not till 1745 that a Bill to make the 

 barbers of London and the surgeons of 

 LondoQ separate and distinct corporations 

 was agreed to by Parliament and received 

 the Royal assent. 



The proper style of the new corporation 

 was the ' Masters, Governors, and Com- 

 monality of the Art and Science of Sur- 

 gery.' It consisted of 21 assistants, of 

 whom one was master, two were wardens, 

 and ten were examiners. The master and 

 wardens were elected annually ; but the as- 

 sistants were appointed for life from the 

 freemen. One of the first acts of the com- 

 pany, which was not able to take anything 

 from the Barber-surgeons in the way of hall, 

 books, or plate, was to lease a piece of 

 ground in the Old Bailey — conveniently 

 contiguous to Newgate — and erect a lecture 



