The Act (32 Hen. VIII, cap. 42) which will well repay perusal, settled the Barber-Surgeons in their corporate capacity for many a long year; under it the old rival society disappeared, it being declared that the two Companies should be united, so that by their assembling together, the science of Surgery might be fostered and improved; whereupon it was enacted that they should be incorporated under the style of “THE MAISTERS OR GOVERNOURS OF THE MYSTERY AND COMMINALTE OF BARBOURS AND SURGEONS OF LONDON.” The property of the old Company of Barbers was handed over to the new Corporation (the Guild of Surgeons are not said to have had any property to bring into the new concern). The usual grant of a common seal, of power to plead and to be impleaded, to hold lands, etc., will be seen at large in the Act. The Surgeons of the Company were to be exempt from bearing armour or being put into watches and inquests. The dead bodies of four malefactors were assigned to the Company yearly for dissections. And, inasmuch as various persons exercising the faculty of Surgery used to take into their houses for cure, people afflicted with the pestilence and other contagious diseases and “do use or exercise barbari, as washynge or shavyng and other feates thereunto belonging,”[77] the same was declared “veraie perillous,” and it was enacted that no one using the faculty of Surgery should practise Barbery, and that no Barber should practise any point in Surgery, the drawing of teeth only excepted. The Surgeons were to exhibit a sign in front of their houses, and no Barber was to exercise his calling unless free of the Company. Four Masters were to rule the Company, whereof two were to be Barbers and two Surgeons. A penalty was named for offenders against the articles, all were to pay scot and lot, and private persons might keep their own Barber or Surgeon, without interference by the Company. [77] Here we have the common practice of the joint craftsman, the “Barber-Surgeon,” clearly indicated. The Act was passed on the 24th July, 1540, and will be found in Appendix C. being taken from the original Black-letter copy in the Author’s possession. We now refer to the Company’s chief treasure, the Holbein picture, and are at once met with a difficulty; does it represent the _granting of a Charter_ to the Company? if so, the year was 1512; or does it illustrate the union of the Barbers and Surgeons by _Act of Parliament_? if so, the year was 1540.