the subject of many
conjectures, some conceiving it to have originated from the word poll or
head, with several other conceits far-fetched and as unmeaning; but the
true intention of the party coloured staff was to show that the master
of the shop practised surgery and could breathe a vein as well as mow a
beard: such a staff being to this day by every village practitioner put
in the hand of the patient undergoing the operation of phlebotomy. The
white band, which encompasses the staff, was meant to represent the
fillet thus elegantly twined about it." We reproduce a page from
"Comenii Orbis Pictus," perhaps better known under its English title of
the "Visible World." It is said to have been the first illustrated
school-book printed, and was published in 1658. Comenius was born in
1592, was a Moravian bishop, a famous educational reformer, and the
writer of many works, including the "Visible World: or a Nomenclature,
and Pictures of all the chief things that are in the World, and of Men's
Employments therein; in above an 150 Copper Cuts." Under each picture
are explanatory sentences in two columns, one in Latin, and the other in
English, and by this means the pupil in addition to learning Latin, was
able to gain much useful knowledge respecting industries and other
"chief things that are in the World." For a century this was the most
popular text-book in Europe, and was translated into not fewer than
fourteen languages. It has been described as a crude effort to interest
the young, and it was more like an illustrated dictionary than a child's
reading-book. In the picture of the interior of a barber's shop, a
patient is undergoing the operation of phlebotomy (figure 11). He holds
in his hand a pole or staff having a bandage twisted round it. It is
stated in Brand's "Popular Antiquities" that an illustration in a missal
of the time of Edward the First represents this ancient practice.

In a speech made in the House of Peers by Lord Thurlow, in support of
postponing the further reading of the Surgeons' Incorporation Bill, from
July 17th, 1797, to that day three months, the noble lord said that by a
statute still in force, the barbers and surgeons were each to use a
pole. The barbers were to have theirs blue and white, striped, with no
other appendage; but the surgeon's pole, which was the same in other
respects, was likewise to have a galley-pot and a red rag, to denote the
particular nature of their vocation.

A question