Hundred Years' War: surgeons and craftsmen of surgical instruments being forced to go with the English army as part of the 1415 invasion of France. Gouache painting by A. Forestier, 1913.

1913

1 painting : gouache, wash and pencil ; image 32 x 53.5 cm

Lettering continues: "There is still so much talk on occasion of the panel system brought into being by the insurance act, and still so much of 'compulsion' of doctors, that this illustration cannot fail to interest, as showing that medical men have not always been free agents! When, in 1415, King Henry V. invaded France at the head of his army, had with that force the surgeon Thomas Mortstede, who, after much arguement, had consented to follow his ruler into the field with a dozen members of the London Corporation of Surgeons. When the second expedition to France was undertaken, the Corporation could not even provide twelve men willing to join the troops. Then it was that the King authorised Mortstede to embark as many surgeons as were wanted, whether they were willing or no, and to press into the service also all the workmen necessary for the making and repairing of the surgical instruments."

This painting is the work of Amédée Forestier (1854-1930), a French or Belgian illustrator who worked in England. He produced it in 1913 as a comment on the introduction of the "panel" system in Great Britain, a precursor of the National Health Service. Panel doctors were provided under Lloyd George's National Insurance Act of 1911 to people covered by National Insurance. General practitioners were required to provide medical care to their "panels" of insured patients. Many of them objected to the obligations thus placed on them by the state. Forestier's painting, produced for publication in an illustrated magazine, reminds its viewers of a previous occasion when English health-care providers were compelled to serve the demands of the state: in 1415, Henry V authorised the army to pressgang as many surgeons as were required, and also any surgical instrument makers, to go to France to support the troops fighting in the Hundred Years War. A similar situation was to arise when the National Health Service was introduced in 1948: doctors objected to being given their orders by the state, but agreed to take part in the service as self-employed contractors

J.J. Keevil, Medicine and the navy, 1200-1900, vol. 1, London 1961, p. 27

Wellcome Collection 24263i