Records of the Incorporation of Barbers, Glasgow : formerly the Incorporation of Chirurgeons and Barbers / extracted and narrated by James B. Tennent.

  • Incorporation of Barbers (Glasgow, Scotland)
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Records of the Incorporation of Barbers, Glasgow : formerly the Incorporation of Chirurgeons and Barbers / extracted and narrated by James B. Tennent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    8- one disease, which would also be likely to heal a great many others, has often been imitated. Down to the present day there have been inventors and vendors of wonderful draughts and universal boluses, warranted to cure every ill which afflicts the human frame stopping short only at raising the dead to life. Lowe was probably as well versed in his business as most of his fellow practitioners. It does not appear that he was ahead of them in either skill or knowledge, although his arrogance and egotism may have suggested superior ability. His appointment of chirurgeon to the King, referred to in the Charter, seems to have been merely an honorary one. It is not known that he ever personally attended his Majesty. Seeing that the Town Council and the Kirk-Session had proposed to deal with and regulate the trade, it is not suiprising that a man of Lowe’s energy and resources should have hit upon the plan of approaching the King directly. He may not have had much respect for the Town Council; it is certain that he had none for the Kirk- Session, having already been subjected to its discipline for some offence not recorded. It was, therefore, quite natural that he would be desirous of superseding or forestalling any effort by either of those bodies, to impose restrictions upon, or to interfere with the business of the craft. In the peti- tion to the King, M‘Ure, in his history of Glasgow, states that Lowe represented the “ great abuses which had been committed by ignorant, unskilful, and unlearned persons, who, under the colour of chirurgeons, abused the lieges at their pleasure by trying experiments whereby the patient oft times suffered.” The King could not but look favourably upon such a petition. He was known to take much interest in the burghs of Scotland. He created several new ones, besides confirming the Charters of most of the older established burghs. He himself afterwards accepted the freedom of