The Surgeons Hall

On 1st July 1505 the Barbers and Surgeons of Edinburgh successfully petitioned the Town Council to be enrolled among the Incorporated Crafts of the Burgh. They were granted a Seal of Cause which conferred certain privileges that included the Barber Surgeons a monopoly of distilling and selling aqua vitae within the Burgh of Edinburgh. It is thought that Barber Surgeons needed aqua vitae to preserve the parts of the human body, which they needed for dissection, since they were also granted a special dispensation in 1505 Seal of Cause to have one body of a hanged criminal each year for dissection. It is unknown how many additional bodies where “purchased” for dissection illegally.

The Barber Surgeons guarded their monopoly very zealously. Some of the earliest documents preserved in the College’s Archive relate to the Incorporation’s (what the College was constituted as before 1778) taking out prosecutions against people in Edinburgh distilling illegally – though caught were required by magistrates to fines to the Barber Surgeons.

After 1612, aqua vitae does not feature in the College’s Records again. It is possible, with the growth of brewing ale in Edinburgh, that a cheaper and perhaps safer preservative spirit than aqua vitae became available and the surgeons simply allowed their monopoly of distilling and selling aqua vitae to lapse. Aqua vitae is only mentioned again in 1700, when Alexander Monteath, Deacon (whom we would nowadays call President) petitioned the Scottish Parliament “that the art discovered by him to draw spirits from malt equal in goodness to true French Brandie may be declared manufactory with the same privileges and immunities as are granted to other manufactories.” This seems to be a rare instance of the Barber Surgeons’ realising the commercial potential of distilling. Nothing further came of that.