Document: Resolution rejecting a petition of the surgeons of New Amsterdam

The surgeons request by petition that they alone be allowed to shave. The director and council respond that shaving is actually not in the domain of surgery, but is only an appendix to it; and that no one can be denied this service to himself or doing it out of friendship for another, with the condition that it is done out of courtesy and without receiving payment for it or keeping a shop to do it in, which is hereby forbidden. With regard to the last petition: we proclaim this regulation concerning the surgeons and the public health and about which [ ] have decided, that whereas last summer two or three serious mistakes were made by the inexperience of some ships' barbers; therefore, the director and council here by order that such ships' barbers shall not dress any wounds, bleed, or prescribe any drinks for anyone on land without the knowledge or special consent of the petitioners or, at least, of Doctor La Montagne.