(no subject)
This is what happens when I get bored at work. I pull a book from the nearby stacks and start reading.
“ Surgeons had little social standing either in Europe or in America during most of the colonial period. Because medieval church laws forbade the shedding of blood by ecclesiastics, and because all the students of medieval universities took clerical orders, there occurred a separation of surgery from medicine which was to continue into the nineteenth century. A physician was a university man, but a surgeon was merely a skilled craftsman. Surgery, which was associated with barbering and bonesetting, was included among the manual trades. In fact, it was not unil 1745 that English barbers and surgeons officially separated into two distinct companies. The surgeon’s work was limited to two distinct companies. The surgeon’s work was limited to setting bones, performing amputations, cutting ulcers and boils, and treating open wounds. He was compelled to work without anesthetics and had not inkling of the value of cleanliness. A leading medical historian estimated that the unhygienic conditions under which surgeons worked cause death in the 70 per cent of cases of compound fractures and 50 per cent of all amputations. It is not surprising to find a South Carolina missionary reporting in 1751 to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel that he was “under the severe hand of the Surgeon.” “
From the Introduction of Epidemics in Colonial America by John Duffy (1953)
“ Surgeons had little social standing either in Europe or in America during most of the colonial period. Because medieval church laws forbade the shedding of blood by ecclesiastics, and because all the students of medieval universities took clerical orders, there occurred a separation of surgery from medicine which was to continue into the nineteenth century. A physician was a university man, but a surgeon was merely a skilled craftsman. Surgery, which was associated with barbering and bonesetting, was included among the manual trades. In fact, it was not unil 1745 that English barbers and surgeons officially separated into two distinct companies. The surgeon’s work was limited to two distinct companies. The surgeon’s work was limited to setting bones, performing amputations, cutting ulcers and boils, and treating open wounds. He was compelled to work without anesthetics and had not inkling of the value of cleanliness. A leading medical historian estimated that the unhygienic conditions under which surgeons worked cause death in the 70 per cent of cases of compound fractures and 50 per cent of all amputations. It is not surprising to find a South Carolina missionary reporting in 1751 to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel that he was “under the severe hand of the Surgeon.” “
From the Introduction of Epidemics in Colonial America by John Duffy (1953)