surgery to an illiterate and grasping laity. For some time, however, the priests kept their hold upon surgery by instructing their servants, the barbers, who were employed to shave their own priestly beards, in the performance of minor operations. It was these men, who were in some degree qualified by the instruction of the clergy, who first assumed the title of barber surgeons, and who gradually formed a great fraternity. In France it was in the reign of Louis XIV that the hairdressers were formally separated from the barber-surgeons, the latter being incorporated as a distinct medical body. In London it was in 1375 that the Company of Barbers were practically divided into two sections, containing respectively those who practiced shaving, and those who practiced surgery. In 1460 the surgeons were finally incorporated by themselves as the Guild of Surgeons and took their place as one of the liveried companies of the city of London. Similar separation occurred in the original great Guild of Weavers, who divided into the Woollen Drapers and Linen Armourers, the latter afterwards becoming the wealthy and powerful Company of Merchant Tailors. To trace the history of the London Company of Barbers a little more fully, it was first formed in 1308 and incorporated in 1462 by a charter. In one of the statutes of Henry VIII it was enacted that: "No person using any shaving or barbery in London shall occult (i. e. practise) any surgery, letting of blood or other matter except only drawing of teeth." In 1540 Parliament passed an act allowing the United Companies of Barbers and Surgeons each to have yearly the bodies of four criminals for dissection. In 1518 the barbers and surgeons were united in one company; the former being restricted from all operations except tooth drawing, and the latter having to abandon shaving and hair dressing. It is interesting also to note that in Oxford, for instance, the Barbers, Surgeons, Waferers and Makers of "Singing bread" were all of the same fellowship, from 1348 to 1500; when, at last, the Cappers, or knitters of caps, were united to them, in 1551, the barbers and waferers abrogated their charter and took one in the name of the city, until 1675, when they received a charter from the University.