A Chronology of State Medicine, Public Health, Welfare and Related ...

1536 Cont - 1547
1536 cont First edition of "the Castel of Helth" by Sir Thomas Elyot (c.1490-1546) set out
simple rules for a healthy diet and conduct; numerous editions produced during the next 60
years.
1538 Parish registers began. Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, ordered priests in every
parish to keep a weekly record of baptisms, marriages and deaths occurring within their
parish. See 1653.
1539 Act for the Dissolution of the Greater Monasteries and Abbeys (31 Hen.VIII, c.13).
1540 Physicians debarred from holding office as Constable or any other officer in the City
and suburbs of London, and four physicians to be chosen yearly to inspect apothecaries'
shops and wares (32 Hen.VIII, c.40). See 1542.
Union of the Guild of Barber Surgeons and the Fellowship of Surgeons combined to
form the Communality (Company) of Barbers and Surgeons of London, following an Act (32
Hen.VIII, c.42) which declared that surgeons should no longer be barbers, and that barbers
should restrict their surgery to drawing teeth. The Company was given the monopoly of
teaching anatomy and surgery and the right to "take yearly four condemned persons for
Anatomies". See 1543, 1745 and 1832.
1541 Act (33 Hen.VIII, c.9) for maintaining of Artillery, and the debarring of Unlawful
Games.
Death of Paracelsus (born 1493, Swiss physician). He challenged the precepts of
Galen; advocated the independent study of diseases; introduced chemical therapeutics; noted
geographical differences in the occurrence of diseases; and was the first to write on miners'
diseases.
1542 The Physicians and Surgeons Act of 1511 amended to permit every person "having
knowledge and experiences of the Nature of Herbs, Roots and Waters" to treat external
wounds, sores, diseases and maladies, and medicines for stone, strangury or agues". This was
necessary because "for the most Part of the Persons of the said Craft of Surgeons have small
Cunning, yet they will take great Sums of Money, and do little therefore, and by reason
thereof they do oftentimes impair and hurt their Patients, rather than do them good" (34
Hen.VIII, c.8). See 1713 and 1745.
1543 "De Humani Corporis Fabrica" by Andrew Vesalius (1514-1564, anatomist in
Brussels) published; the first book of anatomy based on the author's dissections.
1544 "The Boke of Chyldren", by Thomas Phaine (1510-60, lawyer, physician and member
of Parliament), published.
1546 Refounding of St Bartholomew's Hospital (see 1123).
1547 Edward VI gave his chapel of St Stephen at Westminster to the Commons as their
regular meeting place.
Statute of Legal Settlement.