MR. YOUATl’s INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 603 
terinary professions. The practice of human medicine fell prin¬ 
cipally into the hands of the monks, for they alone could read 
Latin ; and all the knowledge of the art of healing was contain¬ 
ed in books written in that language. Some very strange asso¬ 
ciates were allied with them in the practice of physic—women, 
old and young. It w as an essential part of the education of 
every high-born dame to acquire some knowledge of the healing- 
art, and not only the mixing of potions and of ointments was 
committed to her, but even the setting of broken bones. On 
many a principle sufficiently satisfactory we can account for the 
success which often attended the practice of these fair surgeons. 
There were other associates of a different kind. Shoes of iron 
had now began to be attached to the foot of the horse. These 
required mechanics, often rude and untaught enough, to manufac¬ 
ture them; and these persons,being occasionally employed about 
the horse, gradually obtained the sole management of him; and 
from their experience in the use of the instruments of their 
forges, they were often called in to the aid of the human prac¬ 
titioner: they were the principal operators; and the practice of 
medicine was degraded by many of their absurd and barbarous 
customs. Then wounds were healed by keeping them for ever 
open with tents and setons; haemorrhage w r as stopped by 
searing the open vessels with a red-hot iron ; and tumours w ere 
excised w ith heated knives; and lamenesses w ere fired, and 
often fired deeply, too, and beneath the skin; and, betw een the 
surgeon and his sw arthy assistant, the patient too often suffered 
the most horrible tortures. 
In process of time, however, the farrier was shaken off. It 
becomes not me to speak of the new associates of the surgeon, 
who kept little shops for cutting hair, shaving, and curing the 
wounded, nor of the long time that elapsed before the pure 
surgeon w as enabled to dissolve partnership with these most un¬ 
worthy personages ; but the farrier was discarded. He, never¬ 
theless, carried with him a portion of medical practice, and be¬ 
came slaughterer-in-chief in many a village; and, being aban¬ 
doned by his somewhat more scientific companion, he stood con¬ 
fessed in all his native ignorance, and he even seemed volunta- 
l ily and rapidly to enshroud himself in yet thicker darkness ; and, 
both in principle and in practice, he obstinately discarded every 
thing that was valuable. 
At length, light began to beam even on this “ dunnest smoke" 
of night. Awakened to their interests by the losses which they 
sustained in the most valuable of their agricultural property, 
and the absurdities and cruelties which they witnessed, several 
continental states established schools for the education of the 
