By the middle and latter portions of the seventeenth century most of the better physicians and surgeons had either assumed offices and positions in which they were supported by the State, or were settled in permanent residences, which was not the case with the mass of physicians in the sixteenth century. As a result the reputation of the entire profession began to improve, while the unlimited license and absolute freedom of practice prevailing during the Middle Ages were almost entirely done away with. By this time the clerical element had disappeared almost entirely from medical circles, or only dabbled in certain specialties. The Thirty Years' War was fatal to the supremacy of the clergy in matters of public health. Moreover, the increase of international intercourse favored the communication of medical knowledge. The physicians of this period were more occupied with chemistry and physics than had ever been the case before. Nevertheless, this was also the special age of _alchemists_ and of _impecuniosity_. According to one of the classifications of the time, the regular profession was supposed to include physicians, surgeons, barbers, regimental surgeons, lithotomists, bath-keepers, midwives, nurses, apothecaries, druggists, and even confectioners and grocers. Another list of impostors and quacks, equally official, was made to include old women, village priests, hermits, quacks,-- Description of Fig. 27.--"I represents the breast affected with an ulcerated canker, the basis whereof is thrust through with two needles drawing after them a twisted flaxen thread. II shews how the chyrurgeon takes hold with his left hand, of the ends of the threads that were thrust through, and with his right hand he takes the knife and with that he cutteth the canker out by the roots. III shews a canker cut from the breast weighing six physical pounds. IV shews how the chyrurgeon, after the cutting off of a breast ulceratcd, doth lightly cautcrize the place with a red-hot iron at least to corroborate the parts. V is the instrument of Hierom Fabritius ab Aquapendente wherewith a fistula of the thorax is perforated. VI is Sostratus, his band, which is most convenient where the breast is affected with any disease that requires binding. VII shews how Celsus cured the sticking forth of the navil by manual operation. VIII is a truss for the navil made of a double: cotton linncn cloth." [Illustration: 0207] --uroscopists,{187} Paracelsists, Jews, calf-doctors, executioners, crystallomancers (a class of people--chiefly Italian--who sought after crystals), mountebanks, vagrants, magicians, exorcists, monsters, rat-catchers, jugglers, and gypsies. Veterinary physicians were also at that time included in this class.