Observations in defence of a bill lately brought into Parliament, for erecting the Corporation of Surgeons of London into a college : and for granting and confirming to such college certain rights and privileges : including a sketch of the history of surgery in England / by Thomas Chevalier, A. M. A member of the Corporation.

  • Chevalier, Thomas, 1767-1824.
Date:
1797
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations in defence of a bill lately brought into Parliament, for erecting the Corporation of Surgeons of London into a college : and for granting and confirming to such college certain rights and privileges : including a sketch of the history of surgery in England / by Thomas Chevalier, A. M. A member of the Corporation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    fecrated to thofe faints they for fevcral centuries after were obliged to attend the firft Monday in every month, after divine fervice, to drefs the wounded and lame poor, gratis*. Thus then arofe the two clafTes of Surgeons in France. Thofe who had a regular, though a de- fedive education, in the School of Phyfic, and occafionally pra&ifed as Phyficians; and thofe who were originally employed as the fervants of the priefls, being in facl Barbers. Some of the latter on leaving their employers began to encroach on the former, and it appears that in the year 130IJ there were twenty-fix of this defcription fettled in Paris. The former clafs had confiderably mul- tiplied towards the time when Clement V. removed the papal See from Rome to Avignon, but as they were Mill comparatively few in number, the Barbers were of necefTity tolerated as inferior Practitioners. However in the year 1301, they were fummoned before the Procurmr du Roy, at the Chateletof Paris, and forbidden to praclife till they had been examined by the Maitres Chirurgiensf. This pro- hibition was of little avail. The Maitres Chirurgiens had no fpecific authority. The number of ignorant pretenders was daily increafing; till at length John Pitard, who had been Surgeon fucceffively to St. Louis, * Pafquier ut fupra. p. 862. Mem. l'Acad. de Chir.