18 HUNTERIAN ORATION. 



blisters to draw the peccant humours from 

 the surface. Finding these fellows handy 

 with edge tools, the priests taught them to 

 bleed and perform such little operations as 

 they were competent to direct, as well as to 

 make salves and poultices, and to dress 

 wounds and sores. Such was the origin of 

 barber-surgery. When, however, the Popes 

 perceived that the medical practice of the 

 priests took them from their proper calling, 

 and obliged them after various edicts, re- 

 luctantly to relinquish it, the office of phy- 

 sician was then adopted by other scholars 

 upon the same claim or pretension, that of 

 being able to read the Greek and Roman 

 writers on medicine ; and ever since, scho- 

 lastic learning, and academical honours, 

 have been considered as essential attri- 

 butes to the character of a physician. 



In the fourteenth century, these barbers 

 and reputed surgeons pushed themselves 

 forwards into the practice of surgery in 

 France, to a degree that induced the sur- 

 geons in ordinary to petition the legislature 

 to interfere, and an order was obtained that 

 the barbers should not be permitted to prac- 



