Let us continue their history. When the College of Physicians was added to the University of Paris, in the twelfth century, it was specified by the other Faculties of the institution that surgeons formed no portion of the medical Faculty, and were not entitled to any consideration. These surgeons kept shops and wandered through the streets with instrument cases on their backs, seeking clients, and were assisted in their work by the barbers, who were even more illiterate than the surgeons; but, thanks to the exertions of Jean Pitard, surgeon to Saint Louis, these surgeons succeeded in forming a corporation in 1271. Their meetings were held in the dead-house of the Cordeliers’ church, and they were allowed the same privileges as the magistri in physica. They were the surgeons wearing a long robe.
It was only at the end of the century that Lanfranc obtained from Phillip the Beautiful an order to reorganize and bestow degrees for the exercise of surgical art. The studies were extremely practical; they required several years’ attendance at the Hotel Dieu or in the service of some city surgeon, likewise a certain amount of literary education. Like the doctors, these surgeons were permitted to wear a robe and hat. They were a great success.
Unfortunately, the barbers of the fourteenth century obtained, in their turn, an edict from Charles V., who recognized their corporation and authorized the knights of the razor to practice bleeding, and also all manner of minor surgery.
The Faculty of Medicine, jealous of the Surgeons’ College, encouraged the barbers with all their influence. They founded for the face scrapers a special course in anatomy on condition that the barber would always acknowledge the physician as superior to the surgeon. The barbers made this promise, but the time arrived when they thought themselves stronger than the Faculty of Medicine; this was in 1593; but this same year, an order passed by Parliament, at the instigation of the doctors, deprived the barbers of all the power granted them by Charles V.
The barbers thus had their punishment for defying the Faculty of Medicine.
The College of Surgeons, relieved from the competition of the barber surgeons, now claimed the right to become part of the Medical Faculty, and an ordinance of Francois I. gave them this privilege. Letters patent were issued that read:
“It is ordained that the before-mentioned, professors, bachelors, licentiates or masters, be they married or single, shall enjoy all the privileges, franchises, liberties, immunities and exemptions accorded to the other medical graduates of the University.”
Notwithstanding this Royal edict and confirmation of privileges accorded to surgeons by Henri II., Charles IX., and Henri III., the Faculty of Medicine positively refused to open their doors to their mortal enemies, the much despised barber-surgeons, as they were termed.
Even Louis XIV. gave up the idea of making the doctors associate socially with the surgeons; the latter, then, continued to keep shops, with a sign of three sacrament boxes supported by a golden lily, and were only allowed the cadavers of malefactors for purposes of dissection; these bodies were stolen from the Faculty of Medicine. In the meantime, the regular barber-surgeons renewed their ancient allegiance to the doctors, who had vainly attempted to substitute students in their places.
To put an end to the struggle, the College of Surgeons took the desperate but injurious resolve to admit all barbers to their institution and recognize their rights to a surgical degree. A year later, 1660, the Faculty of Medicine demanded that, inasmuch as the College of Surgeons admitted ignorant barbers to their school, the right of surgeons to wear a medical robe and hat and bestow degrees be denied. The Faculty of medicine gained their suit.