There, whether yt divine tobacco were, Or panachæa, or polygony, Shee fownd, and brought it to her patient deare, Who al this while lay bleding out his hart blood neare. |3| The soveraine weede betwixt two marbles plaine Shee pownded small, and did in peeces bruze; And then atweene her lilly handes twaine Into his wound the juice thereof did scruze; And round about, as she could well it uze, The flesh therewith she suppled, and did steepe T’abate all spasme and soke the swelling bruze; And, after having searcht the intuse deepe, She with her scarf did bind the wound from cold to keep [1]. Of fair Nicolette we read— Her strength alone Thrust deftly back the dislocated bone; Then culling various herbs of virtue tried, While her white smock the needful bands supplied, With many a coil the limb she swathed around, And nature’s strength returned. Chirurgery, or surgery—that is manual application—appears to have been the earliest branch of the healing art. We are told of a wonderful cure effected upon Queen Elgiva, whose beauteous face had been mutilated by the brutal clergy. Many superstitious practices were in the early days mingled with the operations of the surgeons, as well as of the physicians. History speaks of a man the muscles of whose legs were drawn up and contracted so as to defy all the skill of the surgeons, until an angel advised wheat flour to be boiled in milk, and the limb to be poulticed with it while warm; then all was well. From the tenth to the twelfth century the practice of medicine and surgery, in England, was almost exclusively in the hands of the monks and clergy. So lucrative did they find it that many of the monks devoted themselves entirely to it, to the utter neglect of their religious duties. This the authorities of the church disapproved of, and made many attempts to restrain. At last, in 1163, it was enacted by the Council of Tours that no clergyman or monk should undertake any bloody operation. From that time |4| the clerics confined themselves to prescribing medicines, and the practice of surgery naturally fell into the hands of the barbers and smiths, who had previously been employed as assistants and dressers to the ecclesiastical operators.