Such men as ‘John le Chirurgien’ or ‘Thomas le Surigien’ are occasionally found, but through the fact of the craft being all but entirely in the hands of the barber, they are rare, and I do not see that they have surnominally bequeathed us any descendants. Even so late as the reign of Elizabeth this connection seems to have commonly existed. In the orders and rules for an academy for her wards the following passage occurs with respect to the teaching of medicine:—‘The Phisition shall practize to reade Chirurgerie, because, thorough wante of learning therein, we have verie few good Chirurgions, yf any at all, by reason that Chirurgerie is not now to be learned in any other place than in a Barbor’s shoppe. And in that shoppe most dawngerous, especially in time of plague, when the ordinary trimming of men for clenlynes must be done by those which have to do with infected personnes.’[[392]] That ‘Thomas Blodlettere’ and ‘William Blodlettere’ should be conspicuous by their absence in modern rolls is not surprising. Their former existence, however, reminds us how in the past the fleshy arms of our forefathers were constantly exposed to this once thought panacea for all physical ills. It has long ceased, however, to be the resortment it was, and science, by taking it out of the tonsor’s hands, has left it to the wiser discretion of a more cultivated and strictly professional class. We have no traces of the dentist, as he too was absorbed in the barbitonsorial craft. Some lines, quoted by Mr. Hotten in his interesting book on ‘Signboards,’ remind us of this—
His pole with pewter basons hung,
Black, rotten teeth in order strung,
Rang’d cups that in the window stood,
Lined with red rags to look like blood,
Did well his threefold trade explain,
Who shaved, drew teeth, and breathed a vein.
Here, therefore, we see one more explanation of the plentifulness of our ‘Barbers,’ ‘Barbours,’ ‘Barbors,’ and more uncouth-seeming ‘Barbars.’ The old records give us an equal or even greater variety in such registrations as ‘John le Barber,’ ‘Richard le Barbour,’ ‘Nicholas le Barbur,’ ‘Thomas le Barbitonsor,’ or ‘Ralph Tonsor;’[[393]] while feminine skill in operating upon the chins of our forefathers is commemorated in such an entry as ‘Matilda la Barbaresse.’ It is just possible, however, that she kept an apprentice, although such things are still to be seen, I believe, as women-shavers. But the one chief sobriquet for the medical craft, and the one which, excepting our ‘Barbers,’ has made the deepest indenture upon our nomenclature, was that of ‘Leech’—was, I say, for saving in our cow-leeches it is now, professionally speaking, obsolete. In our many ‘Leeches,’ ‘Leaches,’ and ‘Leachmans,’ however, its reputation is not likely soon to be forgotten. With the country folk it was the one familiar term in use. Langland, while speaking of—
One frere Flaterie,
Physicien and surgien,