Page:The Hunterian oration, for the year 1819.djvu/24

20 but you’ll be silent.” This foolery was continued so nearly to the present time, that even I myself have often doft my cap to barber-surgeons. Edward the Fourth, in the year 1461, granted a charter of incorporation and privilege to barber-surgeons; and though the distinct nature of the two professions gradually became more and more apparent, yet they were not separated till nearly three centuries had elapsed, till the year 1745.

The legitimate practice of surgery did not, however, remain uncultivated nor unpatronised by different sovereigns. My time does not permit me to relate various instances, and I question u more than one can be adduced, in which the means adopted were judicious and efficient. Louis the Fourteenth, from being continually engaged in war, seems first to have clearly discerned the nature and importance of surgery, and the proper measures by which it might and ought to be promoted. He established hospitals, colleges, and professorships; he ordered that lectures on surgery should be given by surgeons of acknowledged ability,