Perhaps the main object held in view by those who were instrumental in establishing the medical corporations was “protection,” and certain it is that the monopoly of medical licensing enjoyed by the physicians and the barber-surgeons in London and seven miles round was very great. No small amount of the energies of the College of Physicians was in its earlier days devoted to the fighting of irregular practitioners, but this was and is a hopeless battle. We have seen how Henry VIII. protected the rights of physicians and surgeons, but then, as now, there was a great deal of public sympathy for irregular practitioners, and accordingly we find that in the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth year of the reign of Henry VIII. an Act was passed, the chief clauses of which were to the following effect:—That the surgeons, “mindful onely of their own lucres, and nothing the profit or ease of the diseased or patient, have sued, troubled, and vexed divers honest persons, as well men as women, whom God hath endued with the knowledge of the nature, kind, and operation of certain herbs, roots, and waters, and the using and ministring of them to such as be pained with customable diseases, as women’s breasts being sore, a pin and a web in the eye, uncomes of hands, scaldings, burnings, sore mouths, the stone, strangury, saucelin, and morphew, and such other like diseases, &c. &c. Therefore it shall be lawful for any person to cure outward sores, notwithstanding the statute of the 3rd of Henry VIII.” The public did not like being deprived of their favourite quacks and wise women; and the same feeling undoubtedly obtains at present in this country, where hundreds of newspapers are kept afloat almost entirely by quack advertisements, and the proprietor of a pill and ointment has recently died possessed of wealth probably greater than that of all the Fellows of both the Royal Colleges collectively. These are significant facts, and ought to warn us not to waste our energies in attempting to oppose human nature.
Dr. Goodall, in his account of the College of Physicians, published in 1684, gives many curious details of the conflicts of the College with quacks and empirics. The College possessed magisterial power, and, on conviction, the president and censors had power to fine and imprison. For instance, in 1632 Francis Roes, alias Vinter, was accused of undertaking to cure a woman of a tympany, for which he had made exorbitant charges: “Being asked what medicines he gave, at first he refused to discover them, saying he had them noted in his books; but after long expostulation he named jalap and elatorium (as he pronounced the word), and, being questioned what elatorium was made of, he said it was composed of three or four things, whereof diagridium was one. He was censured for giving elatorium (a medicine he knew not), and particularly to a woman at his own house, whom he afterwards sent home through the open streets, telling her it was a cordial. He was fined £10 and committed to prison.” Again, we find one Richard Hammond, a surgeon, fined £5 and committed to prison for undertaking to cure a child of the dropsy. It appears that he administered a clyster composed of molasses, white hellebore, and red mercury, “which wrought so violently that the boy died therewith.” John Hope, an apothecary’s apprentice, gets into trouble for giving a man two apples of coloquintida boiled in white wine, with cinnamon and nutmeg. “The medicine wrought both upwards and downwards; upward he vomited a fatty matter, and downward he voided a pottle of bloud,” and ultimately died. This case was remitted to the higher courts of justice. In 1637 an order was sent from the Star Chamber “to examine the pretended cures of one Leverett, who said that he was a seventh son, and undertook the cure of several diseases by stroaking.” The investigation of this case lasted over a month, and finally the College reported that Leverett was an impostor. “In the fourth year of King Edward VI., one Grig, a poulterer, of Surrey (taken among the people for a prophet in curing divers diseases by words and prayers, and saying he would take no money, &c.), was, by command of the Earl of Warwick and others and the Council, set on a scaffold in the town of Croidon in Surrey with a paper on his breast whereon was written his deceitful and hypocritical dealings; and after that on the 8th of September set on a pillory in Southwark, being then Our Lady Fair then kept, and the Mayor of London with his brethren the aldermen riding through the fair, the said Grig asked them and all the citizens forgiveness. Of the like counterfeit physician (saith Stow) have I noted to be set on horse-back, his face to the horse-tail, the same tail in his hand for a bridle, a collar of jordans about his neck, a whetstone on his breast, and so led through the city of London, with ringing of basons, and banished.” The above are samples of dozens of similar cases; and it is interesting to note that many of these irregular practitioners had powerful friends, and we find Ministers of State writing on behalf of some of them, praying that the punishment may be remitted.
MEDICINE IN THE DAYS OF PEPYS.
In order to complete the picture of the profession in the seventeenth century, I have abstracted from the Diary of truthful Samuel Pepys a few facts having a bearing on medicine. These seem to me to throw no little light upon the science, practice, and ethics of medicine at his time:—“March 26th, 1660: This day it is two years since it pleased God that I was cut for the stone at Mrs. Turner’s in Salisbury-court. And did resolve while I live to keep it a festival, as I did the last year at my house, and for ever to have Mrs. Turner and her company with me. But now it pleased God that I am prevented to do it openly: Only within my soul I can and do rejoice, and bless God, being at this time, blessed be His holy name, in as good health as ever I was in my life.—Oct. 19th, 1663: Coming to St. James’s, I hear that the Queen did sleep five hours pretty well to-night, and that she waked and gargled her mouth, and to sleep again; but that her pulse beats fast, beating twenty to the King’s or my Lady Suffolk’s eleven. It seems she was so ill as to be shaved and pidgeons put to her feet, and to have the extreme unction given her by the priests, who were so long about it that the doctors were angry. The King they all say is most fondly disconsolate for her, and weeps by her, which makes her weep; which one this day told me he reckons a good sign, for that it carries away some rheume from the head.—Oct. 20th: Mrs. Sarah —— tells us that the Queen’s sickness is the spotted fever, and that she is as full of spots as a leopard.—22nd: This morning, hearing that the Queen grows worse again, I sent to stop the making of my velvet cloak till I see whether she lives or dies.—24th: The Queen is in a good way to recovery; and Sir Francis Pridgeon [Prujean, President of the Royal College of Physicians] hath got great honour by it, it being all imputed to his cordiall.—Jan. 16th, 1667: Prince Rupert, I hear, is very ill; yesterday given over, but better to-day.—28th: Prince Rupert is very bad still, and so bad that he do now yield to be trepanned.—Feb. 3rd: To White Hall.... Talking, and among other things, of the Prince’s being trepanned, which was in doing just as we passed through the Stone Gallery, we asking at the door of his lodgings, and were told so. We are full of wishes for the good success, though I dare say but few do really concern ourselves for him in our hearts. With others into the House, and there hear that the work is done to the Prince in a few minutes without any pain at all to him, he not knowing when it was done. It was performed by Moulins. Having cut the outward table, as they call it, they find the inner all corrupted, so as to come out without any force; and the fear is that the whole inside of his head is corrupted like that, which do yet make them afraid of him; but no ill accident appeared in all the doing of the thing, but with all imaginable success, as Sir Alexander Frazier did tell me himself, I asking him, who is very kind to me.—April 3rd: This day I saw Prince Rupert abroad in the Vane room, pretty well as he used to be, and looks as well, only something appears to be under his periwigg on the crown of his head.—4th: (At the Duke of Albemarle’s.) One at the table told an odd passage in the late plague, that at Petersfield (I think he said) one side of the street had every house almost infected through the town, and the other not one shut up.—June 28th, 1667: Home, and there find my wife making of tea, a drink which Mr. Pelling, the potticary, tells her is good for her cold and defluxions.—Nov. 21st: With Creed to a tavern, where Dean Wilkins and others; and a good discourse; among the rest of a man that is a little frantic, and that is poor and a debauched man, that the College have hired for 20s. to have some of the blood of a sheep let into his body, and it is to be done on Saturday next. They purpose to let in about twelve ounces, which they compute is what will be let in in a minute’s time by a watch. On this occasion Dr. Whistler [President of the Royal College of Physicians] told a pretty story, related by Muffet, a good author, of Dr. Caius, that built Caius College, that being very old, and living only at that time upon woman’s milk, he, while he fed upon the milk of an angry, fretful woman, was so himself; and then being advised to take it of a good-natured, patient woman, he did become so beyond the common temper of his age.—30th: I was pleased to see the person who had his blood taken out ... saying he finds himself much better since, and as a new man. But he is cracked a little in his head, though he speaks very reasonably, and very well. He had but 20s. for his suffering it, and is to have the same again tried upon him; the first sound man that ever had it tried on him in England, and but one that we hear of in France.—June 23rd, 1668: To Dr. Turberville about my eyes, whom I met with, and he did discourse, I thought, learnedly about them, and takes time before he did prescribe me anything, to think of it.—29th: To Dr. Turberville’s, and there did receive a direction for some physick, and also a glass of something to drop into my eyes; he gives me hope that I may do well.—July 3rd: To an alehouse; met Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, and Dr. Clarke, Waldron, Turberville, my physician for the eyes, and Lowre, to dissect several eyes of sheep and oxen, with great pleasure, and to my great information. But strange that this Turberville should be so great a man, and yet to this day has seen no eyes dissected, or but once, but desired this Dr. Lowre to give him the opportunity to see him dissect some.—13th: This morning I was let blood, and did bleed about fourteen ounces towards curing my eye.—31st: The month ends sadly with me, my eyes being now past all use almost, and I am mighty hot about trying the late printed experiment of paper tubes.—Aug. 11th: Mighty pleased with a trial I have made of the use of a tube spectacall of paper, tried with my right eye.”
Cesare Morelli (a music master) wrote thus to Mr. Pepys on April 11th, 1681: “Honoured Sir,—I did receive your last letter, dated the ninth of this month, with much grief, having an account of your painful fever. I pray God it will not vex your body too much; and if by chance it should vex you longer, there is here a man that can cure it with simpathetical powder, if you please to send me down the pearinghs of the nailes of both your hands and your foots, and three locks of hair of the top of your crown. I hope with the grace of God it will cure you,” &c.
THE BARBER-SURGEONS.
BARBER-SURGEONS’ HALL.
Much as we owe to the College of Physicians, we owe even more to the early surgeons, and there is certainly no spot in this city which has a greater interest for us as students of medicine than the hall of the Barbers’ Company in Monkwell Street, a street not far from the General Post Office. The house in Knightrider Street, the original home of the College of Physicians, is gone. The house in Amen Corner, the second home of the College, was burnt. The Grand College in Warwick Lane was deserted and sold, and has now completely disappeared. The Barbers’ Hall remains and commands our respect as being on the original spot, though not the original building where the study of anatomy took its rise in this country. The barbers and surgeons have occupied premises in Monkwell Street certainly since their first incorporation in 1460, possibly earlier. The present hall was built by Inigo Jones, and having partially escaped the fire in 1666, much of the original building remains, and certainly the present court-room and the elaborately carved shell canopy over the front door are both works which do credit to this famous architect. Originally, the hall stood detached from other buildings, and seems to have had a fair-sized piece of ground round it, and a garden at the back; and its theatre, one of Inigo Jones’s best works, rested on one of the bastions of the old city wall. With land at its present enormous value, it is not to be wondered at, though much to be regretted, that the Company has turned every available inch to account; and the medical antiquary who now goes in search of this, to us, almost sacred edifice, will need to be warned that it is hemmed in and hidden by warehouses. It was in 1540 that Henry VIII. gave a charter to the Barber-Surgeons, and Holbein’s famous picture of this event is the chief treasure of the Barbers’ Hall, which contains many other relics of medical interest. In this picture, which has been often engraved, and is doubtless familiar to many of you, there are certain points which merit our attention. It is a group of nineteen people, and it is probable that the portraits of all are faithful. The portrait of Henry VIII. was said by King James I. to be reported “very like him and well done,” and it is probable that the portraits of the others are equally good. The king is seated, and the eighteen persons receiving the charter are on their knees. These eighteen are arranged in two groups—a group of three on the right hand of the king, and a group of fifteen on the left. Those on the right are probably entitled to take precedence of the others, they are all members of the king’s household—viz., John Chambre, the king’s physician, who was, as we have seen, one of the six persons named in the charter of the College of Physicians; Sir William Butts, physician to Henry VIII., and one of the characters in Shakspeare’s play of that name; and Master J. Alsop, the Royal apothecary. The fifteen on the left are all surgeons or barbers. The chief, to whom the king is handing the charter, is Thomas Vicary, the king’s sergeant-surgeon, and the first medical officer appointed to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital; of the others, Ayliffe, Mumford, and Ferris were king’s surgeons, and Symson, Harman, and Penn were king’s barbers; of the remaining eight little is known.