The barber surgeon was one of the most common medical practitioners of medieval Europe

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 - generally charged with looking after soldiers during or after a battle

Battle

Generally, a battle is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, or combatants. In a battle, each combatant will seek to defeat the others, with defeat determined by the conditions of a military campaign...

. In this era, surgery

Surgery

Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...

 was not generally conducted by physicians, but by barber

Barber

A barber is someone whose occupation is to cut any type of hair, and to shave or trim the beards of men. The place of work of a barber is generally called a barbershop....

s.

They often took up residence in castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

s where they also provided medical assistance

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

 to the rich and wealthy.

In the British Isles in the Middle Ages

Formal recognition of their skills (in England at least) goes back to 1540, when the Fellowship of Surgeons (who existed as a distinct profession, but still not "Doctors/Physicians" as they are thought of today) merged with the Company of Barbers to form the Company of Barber-Surgeons. However, the trade was gradually put under pressure by the medical profession and in 1745, the surgeons split from the barbers to form the Company of Surgeons. In 1800 a Royal Charter

Royal Charter

A royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organizations such as cities or universities. Charters should be distinguished from warrants and...

 was granted and the Royal College of Surgeons

Royal College of Surgeons of England

The Royal College of Surgeons of England is an independent professional body and registered charity committed to promoting and advancing the highest standards of surgical care for patients, regulating surgery, including dentistry, in England and Wales...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 came into being (later it was renamed to cover all of England - equivalent Colleges exist for Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 and Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 as well as many of the old UK colonies).

The last vestige of barber surgeons' links with the medical side of their profession is probably the traditional red and white barber's pole

Barber's pole

A barber's pole is a type of sign used by barbers to signify the place or shop where they perform their craft. The trade sign is, by a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages, a staff or pole with a helix of colored stripes...

, or a modified instrument from a blacksmith, which is said to represent the blood and bandages associated with their older role. Another link is the UK's use of the title Mr. rather than Dr. for consultants and registrars in surgery (when awarded an MRCS or FRCS diploma). This dates back to the days when surgeons gained an RCS diploma rather than a University Doctoral Degree. Even though all surgeons now have to gain a basic medical degree and doctorate (as well as undergoing several more years training in surgery), they still retain their link with the past, though they no longer perform haircuts, a task the barbers have retained.

In fiction

The TV series Children of the Stones

Children of the Stones

Children of the Stones is a television drama for children produced by HTV in 1976 and broadcast on the United Kingdom's ITV network in January and February 1977. A one-off serial, the story was depicted over seven episodes and produced by Peter Graham Scott, with Patrick Dromgoole as executive...

featured an enigmatic character described as a Barber-Surgeon (portrayed by Freddie Jones

Freddie Jones

Frederick Charles "Freddie" Jones is an English character actor.Jones was born in the town of Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, the son of Ida Elizabeth and Charles Edward Jones. He became an actor after ten years of working as a laboratory assistant with a firm making ceramic products,...

), who had been mysteriously crushed by a fallen stone within the fictional Milbury stone circle

Stone circle

A stone circle is a monument of standing stones arranged in a circle. Such monuments have been constructed across the world throughout history for many different reasons....

.

In the animated series The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack

The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack

The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack is an American animated television series produced for Cartoon Network that premiered on June 5, 2008 and ended on August 31, 2010...

, a recurring character named Dr. Barber is shown to offer both hair cuts and surgery to anyone walking by his shop.

In the musical Man of La Mancha

Man of La Mancha

Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century masterpiece Don Quixote...

, Don Quixote and his assistant Sancho Panza

Sancho Panza

Sancho Panza is a fictional character in the novel Don Quixote written by Spanish author Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in 1605. Sancho acts as squire to Don Quixote, and provides comments throughout the novel, known as sanchismos, that are a combination of broad humour, ironic Spanish proverbs,...

 encounter a Barber-Surgeon, who boasts of his abilities to not only give a good shave, but bandage up any mishaps his straight razor might incur.

The Turkish/Kurdish film Yol

Yol

Yol is a 1982 Yılmaz Güney film. The screenplay was written by Yılmaz Güney, and it was directed by his assistant Şerif Gören, who strictly followed Güney's instructions, as Güney was in prison at the time. Later, when Güney escaped from prison, he took the negatives of the film and edited it in...

(1982) depicts a contemporary rural barber performing an emergency dental operation.