The Columbus commercial., 1909-05-02
OLDEN DAY SURGEONS
They Were Exempt From Jury
Duty In Capital Cases.
IN A CLASS WITH BUTCHERS

Thought to Be Too 6Ioodthirsty to
Calmly Pass or the Taking of HUI
man Life Executtoners Perforr1A
Operations and Acted as Doctors.
When Great Britain's statute book
was still III the Draconian state from
which it was redeemed by Sir Samuel
Romilly and the penalty of death was
inflicted for the most trivial offenses,
surgeons were exempted from serving
3n iuries in capital cases.
It must not be supposed. however,
that this was because their profession
was believed to make them too humane
for such W fk as was then imposed on
iurymen. We are sorry to say il was
for the opposite reason. They were ex-
empted on the same ground as butch
ers, whose occupation, it was thoC ght,
tended to make them too bloodthirsty.
This ought not perhaps surprise rs,
since two or three centuries ago ex-
ecutioners not infrequenuy performed
surgical operations. This seems to
have been particularly the case in Den
mark. At any rate, we have more
knowledge on this point in regard TO
that country than any other.
In Janus some time ago DR.. X. Caroe
tf Copenhagen published a number Of
documents bearing on the subject. The
most ancient of these bears date July
q, 1879. and is a license issued by
Frederick H. to Anders Freimut, ex-
ecutiOner of Copenhag gen, granting him
the right to set bones and treat old
wounds He was expressly forbidden
20 meddle with recent wounds. In
1909 it is recorded in the municipal
archives of Copenhagen that Gaspar,
the hangman, had received four rigs
daIers for the cure of two sick chill
dren in the tnf1rmary.
In 1858 Christian " summoned the
executioner of Gluckstadt, in HolsteiD,
to examine the diseased foot of the
crown prince. In a letter addressed TO
Ole Worm. a leading Danish pbysi.
clan of the day, Henry Roster, physi-
elan in ordinary to the king. complains
bitterly Of the slight thus put upon
him. He says that for two whole
months the hangman, 'who is as fit &c
treat the case as an ass Is TO play the
Tyre" had the case in hand. and the
doctor was not asked for advice. and,
although the case went steadily from
bad to worse. the executioner received
a fee Of 200 rigsdalers and a large
silver goblet-''rewards, says the doc
tor plaintively, which the greatest
among US would not have received
had he succeeded in curing the prince
according to the rules Of art"
Again. in 1851, Christian V. gave a
fee of 200 rigsdalers to the COpen-
hagen hangman for curing the leg OF
q page. In 1898 Andreas Liebknecht,
the Copenhagen executiOner, was in
such repute or his treatment Of dis
ease that he wrote a book on the
subject '@iD the name of the holy and
ever blessed Trinity" In 1882 Bergen,
an eXecutioner in Norway, was au-
thorized by royal decree to practice
surgery.
Even up to the early years of the
nineteenth century this extraordinary
association of surgery with the last
penalty Of the law continued. Erik
Peterson. who was appointed public
executioner at Trondhjem in 1796
served as surgeon to an infantry regi-
tired in 1914 with the rank of surgeon
major. Frederick l. Of Prussia chose |
his favorite hangman. Coblenz. to be
his physician in ordinary.
1t might be suspected that this pc |
culiar combination of functions had |
its origin in a satirical view of the art |
of healing but in the records we have |
quoted we can trace nothing of the |
kind Perhaps the executioner drove |
a trade in human fat and other things |
supposed to possess marvellous heal |
Ing properties. He may thus have /
come to be credited with skill in heal |
ing, though the association surely rep |
resents the lowest degree to which the |
surgeon has ever fallen in public es-
TEEN and social position. Compared |
with the hangman, a gladiator and /
even an undertaken may be considered
espectable.-British Medical Journal.