St. Louis, who had witnessed the services of surgeons in the field of battle during the crusades, had formed a college or _confrerie_ of surgeons, in honour of St. Cosme and St. Damian, in 1268; and wounds and sores were dressed _gratis_ in the churches dedicated to those saints on the first Monday of every month. To this body, of course, the barber-surgeons, or _fraters_ of the priests, who had not received any regular education, did not belong. Hence arose the distinction, which even to the present day obtains in various parts of the Continent, where surgeons are divided into two classes,--those who had gone through a regular course of studies, and those who, without any academical education, were originally employed as the servants of the priests and barbers. So late as the year 1809, one of my assistants in the Portuguese army felt much hurt at my declining his offer to shave me; and in 1801, some British assistant-surgeons, who had entered the Swedish navy, were ordered to shave the ship's company, and were dismissed the service in consequence of their refusal to comply with this command. But to return to our barbers.--These ambitious shavers gradually attempted to glean in the footsteps of the regular chirurgeons, and even to encroach upon their domain, by performing more important operations than phlebotomy and tooth-drawing; the audacious intruders were therefore very properly brought up _ex officio_ by the attorney-general of France, and forbidden to transgress the boundaries of their art, until they had been duly examined by master chirurgeons; although these said masters were not better qualified than many of the barbers. Such was their ignorance indeed, that Pitard, an able practitioner, who had successively been the surgeon of St. Louis, Philip the Brave, and Philip the Fair, obtained a privilege to examine and grant licences to such of these masters who were fit to practise, without which licence all practitioners were liable to be punished by the provost of Paris; and in 1372 barbers were only allowed to dress boils, bruises, and open wounds. Although this account chiefly refers to France and its capital, yet the same distinction and division between surgeons and barbers prevailed in almost every other country; and privileges were maintained with as much virulence and absurdity as the present controversial bickerings between physicians and surgeons.