As already made plain, it was the Church which by its decrees brought about the separation of surgery from medicine, a condition not existing during the palmy days of Greece and Rome. Even the University of Paris at one time refused to admit a student who had not foresworn the study of surgery, while the denouncement of anatomy and surgery alike was promulgated by both papal bulls and clerical decrees. While many of the physicians considered surgery too burdensome a study, and many others had a severe prejudice against it, the principal cause operating to keep them apart was probably the fact that for surgeons there was absolutely no social position. In 1774 Mederer was made Professor of Surgery in Freiburg, in Breisgau; he delivered his opening address on the wisdom and necessity of combining medicine and surgery. As a result he was persecuted by the public, insulted by students, abused by surgeons and constantly threatened with personal assault. He maintained his position, however, and fought against the prejudice. Twenty-two years later, when he left Freiburg, he referred in his last lecture to his early experience. By this time public opinion had been so changed that the students serenaded him and humbly apologized for what their predecessors had done. Mederer could then see the success of his efforts in that the constitution of France contained a clause combining medicine and surgery, and the Royal Sanitary Commissioners of Vienna had unanimously resolved in favor of such union. The movement begun by Mederer was continued by men like Richter, Von Siebold, Loder and others. In 1797, or over a hundred years ago, the Electoral Academy of Erfurt offered a prize for the best essay on the subject "Is it necessary and possible to combine medicine and surgery theoretically as well as practically?" Fourteen papers were submitted, of which twelve were in favor of union. Nevertheless the Academy awarded the prize to the only writer who had opposed such union. His reasons for such opposition were most puerile, as were all the arguments subsequently advanced against it. Nevertheless a great step was taken in advance, when the guilds and fraternities of barbers and bathkeepers were abolished, in which good work Vienna, in 1783, took the lead. It was then declared that shaving was the business of the hair-dresser, and that barber surgeons must attend lectures in surgery and anatomy. Bavaria followed in 1804, and four years later, in Prussia, no one was permitted to practice surgery without having studied medicine. The rules of 1786 regulating the respective positions and duties between physicians and surgeons were annulled in 1808, and by 1811 the barber license was no longer essential for the practice of surgery, the privileges of the barber, as such, being abolished, while for his trade only a common license was needed. XII THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE CIRCULATION A STUDY OF THE TIMES AND LABORS OF WILLIAM HARVEY[9]