Historical sketch of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh : being an address delivered on 19th January 1860, at a conversazione in the hall of the college : with notes and documents / by John Gairdner, M.D.

  • John Gairdner
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Historical sketch of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh : being an address delivered on 19th January 1860, at a conversazione in the hall of the college : with notes and documents / by John Gairdner, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    full freedom of the incorporation, but simply to the right of practis- ing as barbers within the burgh ; and that those so admitted were specially interdicted from the practice of any point of chirurgie under pain of tinsell of their fredome; they were to do their dewtie when the brethren pleisses to require them thereto, and were to have na signe of chirurgie in their bughts or houses, oppenlie or privatlie, sic as pigs [crockery], buistis, or chirurgane caiss, or box pertaning to the chirurganis. The mere barber had no delibera- tive voice. He was free of his own trade, but not a freeman of the incorporation; and it was only necessary for those who were full freemen to give up the inferior occupation, in order to accomplish what was accomplished about seventy years after,—the practical, though not then legal, separation of two pursuits, which, even to- wards the end of the sixteenth century, had begun to be regarded as incompatible.1 In the first century and half of our existence, there were no im- portant changes in our corporate rights. We were the sole teachers and almost the sole practitioners in this city, of what was then known of the healing art. The visit of Jerome Cardan, in 1552, for the cure of the brother of Arran, the Regent, was an exceptional thing; and there were probably other exceptions, now forgotten. But during this period our profession, like every other, was benefited by the gradual progress of literature and science. The discovery by Harvey, in the reign of Charles I., of the true course of the circula- tion of the blood, gave, for the first time, a scientific basis both to medi- cine and to surgery. The laws were better administered, especially when enforced by the iron will and stern impartiality of the Pro- tector ; and men of peaceful pursuits, more secure against violence, were less tolerant of exclusive privileges, which were plainly less necessary, and therefore less defensible. Ours wex*e invaded by two descriptions of practitioners, unincorporated physicians and unin- corporated apothecaries. The physicians sought to erect themselves into a college, not merely for Edinburgh, but for all Scotland, by means of a patent to which Cromwell was supposed to be favour- able, and which contained the following clause:—Forasmuch as the science of physick doth comprehend, include, and containe in it 1 A painful occurrence took place in 1600. Robert Auchmowtie, one of the Incorporation of Surgeons, was capitally convicted on the 10th June, and be- headed at the mercat croce that year for killing James Yauchope in single combat at St Leonard's Craigs on the 20th April preceding. King James in- terfered in the trial against the prisoner, avowedly at the instigation of the friends of Vauchopc. Pitcairn's Criminal Trials. Vol. II. p. 112.