He counsels doctors to be careful in estimating the length of time of a cure, in fact to suggest double the time he expects. If the patient wonders at the rapidity of cure and asks, ‘Why that he putte hym so long a tyme of curyng, sithe that he helyd hym by the halfe? Answere he, that it was for that the pacient was stony-herted and suffred wele sharpe thingis, and that he was of gode complexion, and hadde able fleshe to hale, and feyne he other causes pleasable to the pacient for pacientez of syche wordez are proude and delited.’
Arderne’s instructions for the guidance of doctors are very sensible, and they help us to form a correct estimate of the manners of the public who were patients. Dr. Poore, after giving an analysis of the surgeon’s work, writes: ‘It is evident that John of Arderne was a consummate man of the world, and knew all the tricks of his trade. His fees seem to have been enormous, and indeed he is only one out of many examples among our early professional forerunners who made very large professional incomes.’[139]
Mr. Anderson, the biographer of Arderne, remarks that although he called himself ‘Chirurgus inter Medicos,’ ‘there is nothing to show that he possessed a master’s degree, or any formal license for the exercise of his calling.’ Mr. Anderson adds, however, ‘his writings prove that he was a man of clerkly attainments, with a good knowledge of Latin and French, and well read in the available literature of his profession, quoting freely from the works of the mediæval surgeons, the Arabs, and even from the Greeks.’
Mr. Anderson notes that there are no less than twenty-two manuscripts of the works of Arderne in the British Museum, both in the original Latin and in early English translations, ‘some repeating or overlapping others in matter.’ His book Da curâ Oculi is dated from London in 1377.
It was not until the next century that a surgeon of equal distinction had arisen in England.
There must have been many incompetent practitioners in London in the fourteenth century, an instance of which evil we find in Riley’s Memorials. John le Spicer of Cornhill in 1354 attended Thomas de Shene, who suffered from a serious wound in the jaw. Certain surgeons sworn before the Mayor found that the ‘enormous and horrible hurt on the right side of the jaw of Thomas de Shene’ was incurable, but they held that if John le Spicer had been expert in his craft, or had called in counsel and assistance to his aid, the injury might have been cured.[140]
When the charter was granted to the Barbers’ Company in the next century it is expressly stated in the preamble (1462) that through ‘the ignorance, negligence and stupidity’ of various barbers and other practitioners in surgery many of the King’s lieges had ‘gone the way of all flesh.’
Mr. D’Arcy Power states that ‘a Guild of Surgeons, distinct from the Guild of Barbers, existed in London from time immemorial. The guild was always a small body, probably never more than twenty in number, and sometimes dwindling to less than a dozen. It existed and remained unincorporated at a time when many of the other guilds either vanished or were converted into companies. The earliest notice of the Surgeons’ Guild occurs in 1369.’[141] This information is obtained from Letter Book G, translated from the Latin by Riley.
‘On Monday next, after the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary [2nd February 1369], Master John Dunheued, Master John Hyndstoke, and Nicholas Kyldesby, surgeons, were admitted in full husting, before Simon de Mordone [Mayor] and the Aldermen, and sworn, as Master Surgeons of the city of London, that they would well and faithfully serve the people, in undertaking their cures, would take reasonably from them, would faithfully follow their calling, and would present to the said Mayor and Aldermen the defaults of others undertaking cures, so often as should be necessary; and that they would be ready, at all times, when they should be warned, to attend the maimed or wounded, and other persons; and would give truthful information to the officers of the city aforesaid, as to such maimed, wounded and others, whether they be in peril of death or not. And also faithfully to do all things touching their calling.’[142]
There is a similar ordinance dated April 1390 in which Master John Hynstok, Master Geoffrey Grace, Master John Brademore, and Master Henry Suttone, surgeons, were admitted and sworn before the Mayor.[143] Mr. Power points out that this ordinance is specially interesting, because the inspecting master surgeons are sworn ‘faithfully to follow their calling, and faithful scrutiny to make of others, both men and women, undertaking cures, or practising the art of surgery; and to present their defaults, as well in their practice as in their medicine, to the aforesaid Mayor and aldermen, so often as need shall be.’[144]