"general practitioner" has come to be one who avowedly fulfills the functions of both. Indeed in our day it is common to take degrees in both medicine and surgery, and thus practically to unite these sub-professions. Meanwhile the two jointly have become more clearly marked off from those who carry out their orders. Down to recent times it was usual not only for a surgeon to compound his own medicines, but a physician also had a dispensary and sometimes a compounder: an arrangement which still survives in country districts. Nowadays, however, both medical and surgical practitioners in large places depute this part of their business to chemists and druggists.
But the apparent nonconformity to the evolutionary process disappears if we go back to the earliest stages. The distinction between doctor and surgeon is not one which has arisen by differentiation, but is one which asserted itself at the outset. For while both had to cure bodily evils, the one was concerned with evils supposed to be supernaturally inflicted, and the other with evils that were naturally inflicted—the one with diseases ascribed to possessing demons, the other with injuries inflicted by human beings, by beasts, and by inanimate bodies. Hence we naturally find in the records of early civilizations more or less decided distinctions between the two.
There is evidence implying that the division existed in Egypt before the Christian era; and it is alleged that the Arabians systematically divided physics, surgery, and pharmacy into three distinct professions. Among the Greeks, however, the separation of functions did not exist: "the Greek physician was likewise a surgeon"—was likewise a compounder of his own medicines. Bearing in mind these scattered indications yielded by early societies, we must accept in a qualified way the statements respecting the distinctions between the two in mediæval times throughout Europe. When we remember that during the dark ages the religious houses and priestly orders were the centers of such culture and skill as existed, we may infer that priests and monks acted in both capacities; and that hence, at the beginning of the fifth century, surgery "was not yet a distinct branch of the practice of medicine." Still, it is concluded that clerics generally abstained from practicing surgery, and simply superintended the serious operations performed by their assistants: the reason being perhaps, as alleged, that the shedding of blood by clerics being interdicted, they could not themselves use the operating
