65 



It would seem that surgeons other than members of the 

 guild of Barber Chirurgeons existed and practised during the, 

 period when these companies nourished ; these included Army 

 Surgeons, University Graduates, and men who had served an 

 apprenticeship of five to seven years with surgeons of repute. 



There is a pamphlet in the Thorpe collection written during 

 the reign of Queen Anne, which sets out " that there is not 

 the least affinity between Surgery, Peruke-making, and the 

 Feat or Craft of Barbery," " the barbarous and inhumane 

 practices of impudent and ignorant Pretenders," and that 

 " the Guild was a refuge for Empericks, Quacks, Women and 

 other idle persons." 



The secession of the Apothecaries, together with the move- 

 ment on foot at the time to regulate the practice of surgery, 

 weakened the power of the guild. In the provincial towns, 

 e.g., Cork and Limerick, in each of which a company of Barber- 

 Surgeons flourished, the same process of disintegration went on. 



