any Merchant or others, unless they and their Medicines, Instruments and Chests respectively, were first examined, inspected and allowed by two such Masters or Governors of the Mystery and Commonalty aforesaid for the Time being, as were skilled, knowing and Professors in the same Art of Surgery, under the Penalty therein mentioned: And whereas, since the said Act for Incorporation of the said two Companies, those of the said Company practising Surgery, have from their sole and constant Study of and Application to the said Science, rendered the Profession and Practice thereof of great Benefit to this Kingdom: And whereas the Barbers belonging to the said Corporaration are now, and for many Years have been engaged and employed in a Business foreign to, and independent of the Practice of Surgery; and the Surgeons belonging to the same Corporation being now become a numerous and considerable Body, and finding their Union with the Barbers inconvenient in many Respects, and in no Degree conducive to the Progress or Improvement of the Art of Surgery; and that a Separation of the Corporation of Barbers and Surgeons, and making two Corporations of the present united Company of Barbers and Surgeons, will contribute much to the Improvement of Surgery, and thereby become a Matter of publick Utility, are therefore desirous that the Surgeons being Freemen of the said Company, may be made a Corporation separate and distinct from and Independent of the Barbers of and belonging to the said Company;' May it therefore please your most Excellent Majesty that it may be enacted; and be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, That the said Union and Incorporation of the Barbers and Surgeons of London, made and effected by the said recital Act of the thirty-second Year of King Henry the Eighth, shall from and after the twenty-fourth Day of June one thousand seven
