4
King pullit furtht his twtht, xviii shillings." Again, "Item to Kynnard ye barbour, for twa teith drawin furtht of his hed be the King, xviii shillings." And lastly, "Item to ye blind wif yat hed her eyne schorne, xiii shillings."[1] These facts may recall to some of you the circumstance, that historians enumerate among the high qualities of Henry VIII. his being an excellent physician, so that medicine must have been a favourite study of royalty in those days.[2] That there were practitioners about the Court of James the Fourth who had medical degrees is shown by a curious passage in a poem addressed to the King by Dunbar:—
"Sir, ye have mony servitours,
And officers of divers cures,
Kirkmen, Courtmen, Craftsmen fine,
Doctors in jure and medicine."
From the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh I find that, on the 9th of February, 1557, the Council ordained James Adamsoun "to pay to John Wauchlott, officer and chirurgeane, the sowme of thre pundis for curing and mending of James Hendersonis leg in the townys service, at the taiking of Ramsay, ane thief, quha we slane in the taiking."[3]
From the Report on Historical Manuscripts I find that, in various parts of Scotland, the office of coroner existed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In Argyllshire, for example, various charters refer to the office. But one of the most curious facts, in a medical point of view, laid before this Commission by Mr. Fraser in his Report on the Argyll Papers, is, that an office existed, appointed by royalty, entitled that of the principal physician within the isles of Scotland. From a charter, dated 10th July, 1609, granted by King James the VI. in favour of Fergus M'Beath, in Ila, it is seen that this gentleman received that appointment, "with all the profits and casualties belonging thereto," along with certain lands, which were thereby feudally vested in him, and to be transmitted to his family. Such incidental references are to be met with here and there, and it is, of course, well known that, so early as 1505, the surgeons of Edinburgh were formed into a corporation, and, as Maitland says in his History of Edinburgh, "Accord-
