Page:The Hunterian oration, for the year 1819.djvu/23

Rh tise, except in slight cases. In process of time, however, die barbers attended lectures, and became as well informed as the inferior class of surgeons, and being still patronised and instructed by their old friends the learned doctors, they at length obtained an establishment as regular practitioners in France, under the title of barber-surgeons. Of this order was Ambrose Paré, a man of original observation, great candour, and abundant experience, whose works were well calculated to correct the bad and cruel surgery of those times.

Wherever the priests practised as physicians, the barbers performed the offices of surgeons. As, likewise, medical knowledge radiated from Italy to the northern nations of Europe, so they must have received the information mixed with any absurdity which it might have taken up in its passage; and this, if we had even the discernment to distinguish, we seem to have wanted the resolution to reject, for the copartnership between surgery and shaving has been but newly dissolved in this country. “Would heart of man e’er think it,