ortant
roles in the life of the colony.

The history of surgeons and surgery during the century is less
distinguished than that of the physician and his practice. Surgery
produced no individuals of the stature and significance of Sydenham nor
any revolutionary theories as important as Harvey's. Dissections were
made but the knowledge acquired was not applied; amputation was common
but not always necessary or effective.

Battle wounds and injuries lay in the province of the surgeon. While
the surgeon was primarily concerned with the military, using mechanical
force (cutting, tying, setting, and puncturing) in his treatment of
body wounds and injuries, physicians on the Continent and in England
also filled these functions. For example, physicians in Italy sometimes
performed surgical operations they considered worthy of their dignified
positions, and in England the licensed physician could practice
surgery. On the other hand, surgeons licensed by Oxford University were
bound not to practice medicine. Both in France and in England surgeons
and barbers held membership in the same guild or corporation, and
physicians considered them of inferior social status. The American
frontier tended to reduce such professional and social distinctions.

In Europe and England, where medical education was institutionalized to
a far greater extent than in colonial Virginia, education explains much
of the difference in social status between physician and surgeon. The
surgeon learned by apprenticeship to an experienced member of his guild
while the physician had to meet certain educational and professional
requirements, depending upon local or national law. The best medical
education of the period could be had at the great centers of Leyden,
Paris, and Montpellier. Cambridge and Oxford also offered a degree in
medicine.

Englishmen preferred to study medicine abroad--according to a recent
study made by Phyllis Allen and printed in the _Journal of the
History of Medicine and Allied Sciences_--because a better education
could be obtained there in the same number of years. The Doctorate of
Medicine required fourteen years of undergraduate and post-graduate
study at Oxford; the Cambridge requirement was similar. Despite reforms
during the seventeenth century, education at these universities
remained dogmatic and classical. Students usually found their studies
dull and their social life stimulating. The more enterprising students
could find t