The early surgeons were many of them illiterate and rough. Some of them--perhaps most of them--were, in this country and in France, evolved from the barbers; and this is not surprising, for the man who can shave with dexterity has acquired no small skill in handling sharp instruments, and must be often called upon to treat wounds of his own making. It is not surprising that these men should have been called in to attend to cases of injury, and we know that they very early added tooth-drawing and bleeding to their tonsorial art, and practised all three till a comparatively recent date. War with its wounds must have made surgery a necessity in every country, from the time of the siege of Troy downwards; and Mr. South gives an interesting account of Thomas Morstede, who was chief surgeon to Henry V.’s army at Agincourt. Again, many doubtless acquired their first knowledge by practising on animals, and it must be remembered that there are now throughout this country scores of illiterate men who operate with consummate skill on the lower animals. It appears that as early as 1308 the barbers of London were incorporated into a guild, and there appears to have been a gradual separation of them into those which practised surgery and those which practised barbery, and in 1460 the Guild of the Barber-Surgeons was one of the livery companies of the City. Outside this body there was an Association of Surgeons, and also an Association of Physicians, and, according to Mr. South, there appears to have been in 1423-24 a veritable Conjoint Board of Physicians and Surgeons, which, however, survived its birth only a few months. At the time of the accession of Henry VIII. it appears that public opinion was getting ripe for legislation. THE EARLIEST MEDICAL ACT.