HOW THE PAWNBROKER GOT HIS DEVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 106, 31 October 1936, Page 27

HOW THE PAWNBROKER GOT HIS DEVICE

Surgery traces its origins back £o the ■.onourable but mote lowly work of he barber, says a writer in the "Daily Express." When a barber had shown ieftness in trimming his knight's beard ie became a welcome figure in the vicinity of battlefields, where he was awarded the task of binding the lordly wounds in battle, and also at jousting matches, where fractures called for his ministrations; and he was even summoned to deathbeds of kings in days

when blood-letting was considered the

.^.only-relief from fever. Finally ,_ as they ;£.tj«came -ptee- men,'-,ihe>ba;rbersjincor-ZiVpOrated ;:td.,;practise the ; :; dtial "role of .•- ,*..'.,!■' ' it -^.'The'shield;of the:•barßer-cfiirurgeons

)S§di London bears' the membership's fayH%>urite instrument, the hook-poinj;ed lanused for. blood-letting.: Those of .^Edinburgh were even more .canny arid j'i-'used surgical , instruments;1;-on .. their; • medieval' 'billboards,; :■ e'entring them, ~ ■ patriotically, ,'around , -.the Scottish. '•';■' thistl|.. .-In--B.elgiiim-:.the guild, of the ': barbef-chirurge"on? ■of Brussels j was : under, the patronage of. Saint ,Damian, ;.who, with his brother, Saint Cosmos, 'came out of Arabia in the third1 century and who treated the ailing without fee till the day of.their martyrdom under Diocletian^ on Septeriiber"27, and this is still celebrated as -. their;, feast day.

Medicine, through the apothecary, harks' back to painting; The' .artist sometimes utilised his 'paint-mixing apparatus to compound "physicks" for agues and potions for headaches, etc.,

gnd, of ten found1 he fared better as a druggist, as-'a 'sideline' than'■'in pursuing his aesthetic vocation—so much better that when, the, apothecaries' guilds were officially established they gave up painting entirely.', Art "often languished; illness always flourished...'."";- .

■ The. apothecaries, of London, with some semblance of artistic feeling, chose a radiant head of Apollo, god of healing, .for their emblem.- . ■' : ■ The apothecaries' guild of Nuremberg used ' honest tradesmen's tools in the signs hung over their doorways; scales, for weighing powders, pot! and pestles for pounding pills.

healing, : .for their emblem.

The study of.,the. heraldic insignia revealed that the Medici were once pharmacists. Six pills formed the family arms, which were later adopted by the apothecaries' guild of Florence.' Pawn-, brokers' three balls are-a halving of 'the device-^which came about when the family attained magnificence in batiking.. ' _ ' . ''. .

Men of many nations have contributed to modern pathology: Morgani, the Italian; Hunter,-the Englishman; Bichat arid Pasteur, the Frenchmen; Rakatinsky, the Austrian; Virchow and Conheim, the Germans,' and William H. Welsh, father of pathology-in America;

Pine, cones are the emblems of Aesculapius, half-godrson of Apollo, whose skill for healing increased until he raised to life a'corpse. For this presumption Zeus slew him; then repenting, placed him - for ever. ob. Mount Olympus. ■ ,-■•■• - ■ • , • ,