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point out the distinctive character of this corruption, which has in some measure appertained to the sister divisions of the kingdom, though originating from a very different cause and pursuing a very opposite course both in Ireland and Scotland. As we have seen this illegitimate progeny to have arisen, and year by year to have increased through the dearth of educated physicians in England and Wales during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, until that alliance which all ages and states had testified against was rendered legitimate by the Act of 1815; so may we find an opposite course pursued both in Ireland and Scotland, during the same period, even in spite of the example advanced by their influential sister division of the kingdom.

In England and Wales we have had priests and physicians barbers and surgeons-allied by Law in performance of the duties of the physician's office, and we have the representatives, even of these divisions, at the present day; but in none of our enactments, previous to that of 1815, has the apothecary been associated either with the physician or surgeon in one body corporate.

On the other hand, in Ireland we find that in the year 1687 a combination of surgeons and apothecaries, which had gradually crept in, was confirmed by Charter 3 Jac. II,* which states that "we

*It is probable they were allied with barbers from an early date, but this is the first legal alliance extant. See Appendix, 2.

nevertheless, being willing, in order to the promoting of trade and traffick in our new City of Dublin, to renew the guild or corporation of barbers, of which the barbers, chirurgeons, apothecaries, and periwig-makers of the city of Dublin were members, to the intent that the arts and misteryes of barberchirurgeons, apothecaries, and periwig-makers may be the better exercised, &c., do constitute one guild or fraternity of the arts, &c., by the name of the Guild or Fraternity of St. Mary Magdalene, to consist of one master, two wardens, and of the brothers of the arts aforesaid, by the name of the Master, Wardens, and Brothers of the arts of Barber-Chirurgeons, Apothecaryes, and Periwigmakers of the Guild or Fraternity of St. Mary Magdalene."*

Thus, it is evident that in Ireland apothecaries and surgeons were united by law in one body corporate; so, also, in Scotland even some years previously the same alliance was legally established. "By Act of Council, 1657, the surgeons and apothecaries were, at their mutual desire, united into one community, which was ratified by Parliament. From the time the arts of surgery and pharmacy were united, the corporation laid aside entirely their business as barbers. This occasioned an Act of Council on the 26th of July, 1682, recommending to this corporation to supply the town with a sufficient number of

* See Moore on the History of Pharmacy in Ireland,' p. 18.

persons qualified to shave and cut hair; and who should continue dependent on the surgeons. But in the year 1722 the surgeons and barbers were separated from each other in all respects, except that the barbers are still obliged to enter their apprentices in the register kept by the surgeons.

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"By a Charter of his present Majesty dated 14th March, 1778, this corporation was erected of new under the name of the Royal College of Surgeons of the City of Edinburgh.""

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We have previously asserted that this combination of duties which by law appertains to the present day to Ireland and Scotland, originated from a very different cause, and pursued a very opposite course, to that of the Apothecary-physician as legalised in England and Wales, 1815. To the latter alliance we can find no precedent, and can see no reason, except the dearth of educated physicians, and their consequent arrangements with apothecaries during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; but to that of the former there is an evident one in the medieval enactments of foreign states. In the books of the "Recteur" of the University of Paris is a statute bearing date 1301, of which the second clause runs thus according to Crevier Le second ordonne aux Chirurgiens,

* See Arnott's History of Edinburgh,' p. 524. Edin., 1779. Also Appendix, 3.

+ Histoire de l'Université de Paris,' tom. ii, p. 52.

Apothicaires, et Herboristes de se renfermer dans les limites de leurs fonctions, et en consequence, de se contenter, le Chirurgien de l'opération manuelle, l'Apothicaire de la composition des medicamens, et l'Herboriste de l'administration des simples, suivant l'ordonnance du Médecin."

This decree fully explains the servile position of surgery, and those who practised it at that period. When gross ignorance characterised alike the Surgeon, the Apothecary, and the Herborist, they may have been fitly associated one with the other, to do only the bidding of their less ignorant master, but as time passed on and the modern Surgeon resumed his primitive rank and the right to exercise his head as well as his hand, so we find that the Royal Colleges of Ireland and Scotland have increasingly ignored an alliance which would never have been admitted to their shores, excepting in these times of darkness, when modern surgery and pharmaceutical chemistry had no existence.

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In Ireland apothecaries first claimed their right to exclusive powers and privileges as Apothecaries or Guild of St. Luke "

Corporation of as early as 1745

by Charter 18 George II, which separation was confirmed 31 George III, constituting them the

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Corporation of Apothecaries' Hall," and, although the College of Surgeons still reserves the power to authorise its members to dispense their own medicines, few avail themselves of it, and the right to

keep an open shop for preparing, compounding, and selling medicines according to the prescriptions of others, is restricted to Members of the Apothecaries' Company, and that after a good and sufficient education and examination.*

In Scotland also surgery has passed through its successive periods, from the gross ignorance and gradual illumination of the past, to the perfection of the present day. Since the time when surgeons were united with barbers in one body (1505), the preliminary education then required being that they could both "wryte and reid" their course has been the same as throughout all territories where canon law has held its sway more or less, since the councils of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries-one incessant struggle to be liberated from the degrading alliances to which it was then assigned.† The union of barber-surgeons with apothecaries in 1657, was another heavy hindrance to the progress of surgery in this portion of the kingdom, but by the exclusion of "Barbery" in 1722, and that more effectually in 1778, as well as by the gradual renunciation of

* See Appendix, 2 and 3.

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That na Masteris of the said Craft shall take ane Prenteis or feit man in Tyme cuming, to use the Surgerie Craft, without he can baith wryte and reid."

This alliance also probably existed previously, as in Ireland, but was not legally recognised before this date, excepting that the original Charter, 1505, granted that "na person, man or woman, within this burgh, make or sell any aquavite, except the saidis maisteris," &c. See Charter.

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