AMBROISE PARÉ, the father of French surgery, and one of the most useful as well as the earliest of the innovators upon that art as practised by the ancients, was born at Laval, in the district of Maine, in the year 1509. After going through the rudiments of education, he was placed at an early age under the tuition of the chaplain Orsoy, in his native town, to be instructed in the classics; but the means of his family appear to have been very narrow, or the economy with which they were supplied must have been strict; for we find that the worthy chaplain was obliged to make use of the services of his pupil in grooming his mule and other menial capacities, in order to eke out the scanty remuneration he received for his instructions. In truth, these do not appear to have been great; for Paré never achieved a knowledge of Greek, and was but superficially acquainted with the Latin language; and it is probable that even this small amount of classical acquirement was made at a late period of his life, when, being an author, he wished to quote.

On leaving his tutor, he was placed with a barber-surgeon at Laval, named Vialot, who is recorded to have taught him how to bleed. Not long after this change in his pursuits, the lithotomist, Laurent Colot, came to Laval to undertake the treatment of one of the chaplain's ecclesiastical brethren on this occasion, Paré was present, and zealously assisted at the operation. This accidental circumstance appears to have suggested to him the ambitious project of following the higher departments of surgery; and he contrived to leave the shop of his master in phlebotomy, and repaired to Paris, where he availed himself with so much diligence of the advantages afforded by that city, as a school of anatomy and medicine, that he was soon entrusted with

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the subordinate charge of the patients of Goupil, who then held the surgical chair in the college of France. From this discerning tutor he learned not only all the knowledge which could at that time be obtained from secondary sources, but the art of expressing himself well, and acquitting himself of his duties with neatness and grace. The talents thus acquired were of the greatest service to him in his after-life, which was chiefly passed among the great; and gave him

that ease of manner and power of gaining confidence, which stood him so frequently in stead as court-surgeon to four successive monarchs, and, aiding the natural frankness of his character, carried him safely through many an intrigue and cabal, dangerous not only to his reputation and fortunes, but even to his life. He was never a member of the community of barber-surgeons, but derived his legal qualification to practise from a degree in surgery taken at the college of St. Edme, of which he was afterwards Provost.

Having passed upwards of three years as a student, residing actually within the walls of the Hotel Dieu at Paris, he was appointed Staffsurgeon, in 1536, when twenty-seven years old, to the Mareschal René de Monte-jean, who commanded the infantry under the Constable Montmorenci in the campaign of Piedmont. In this capacity, Paré was present at the siege and capture of Turin.

From this time is to be dated the commencement of his acquaintance with military surgery, for which he afterwards did so much. 'I was then," he says, very raw and inexperienced, having never seen the treatment of gunshot wounds. It is true that I had read in the Treatise of Jean de Vigo on wounds in general, that those inflicted by fire-arms partake of a poisonous nature on account of the powder, and that they should be treated with hot oil of elder mixed with a little theriacum. Seeing, therefore, that such an application must needs put the patient to extreme pain, to assure myself before I should make use of this boiling oil, I desired to see how it was employed by the other surgeons. I found their method was to apply it, at the first dressing, as hot as possible, within the wound with tents and setons: and this I made bold to do likewise. At length my oil failed me, and I was fain to substitute a digestive, made of the yolks of eggs, roseoil, and turpentine. At night I could not rest in bed in peace, fearing that I should find the wounded, in whose cases I had been compelled to abstain from using this cautery, dead of poison: this apprehension made me rise very early in the morning to visit them; but beyond all my hopes, I found those to whom I had applied the digestive suffering little pain, and their wounds free from inflam

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mation; and they had been refreshed by sleep in the night. On the contrary, I found those to whom the aforesaid oil had been applied, feverish, in great pain, and with swelling and inflammation round their wounds. I resolved, therefore, that I would never burn unfortunate sufferers from gunshot in that cruel manner again."

Such was the casual origin of one of Paré's greatest improvements in surgery,- -the substitution of a mild treatment for the cautery in gunshot wounds; a principle which he afterwards successfully extended to other injuries at that time deemed poisonous. The improvement seems as obvious as it was important: yet the adherents of the old practice gave him much trouble, and even made it necessary for him to defend his wholesome innovation long afterwards before Charles IX. in person.

Yet with all his sound sense, Ambroise Paré was not by any means free from the credulity of his age. For instance, he relates, in his account of this siege, an amusing story of the court he paid to an Italian quack doctor, who lived at Turin, to wheedle him out of the secret of a dressing for fresh gunshot wounds, for which he had great fame. This was found to consist of a mixture of bruised worms, the grease of puppies boiled down alive, and other absurd ingredients, constituting the celebrated oleum catellorum, the only merit of which consists in its harmlessness. He is erroneously praised by Dr. Ballingall for having banished this unguent from practice, whereas, on the contrary, he introduced it; and he shows, by his frequent reference to it in his works, that he had no small faith in its virtues, and was exceedingly proud of having been the means of its publication.

The death of his patron, the Mareschal, soon after the fall of Turin, induced him to return to Paris, though tempted by large offers to remain in the camp.

In 1543, he accompanied the Duc de Rohan into Britanny, where Francis I. commanded in person against the English; and the next year he followed that monarch in his expedition to throw supplies into Landrecy. In 1545, he was with the camp at Boulogne, where he cured the general of the royal army, Francis Duke of Guise, of a very dangerous wound, which gained him great reputation.

In 1552, he attended the Duc de Rohan in his campaign in Germany. During this expedition occurred one of those instances of combined humanity and skill, which made Paré the favourite of the French army. He thus tells the story: "A party had gone out to attack a church, where the peasants of the country had fortified themselves, hoping to get some provisions, but they came back very soundly

beaten; and one especially, a captain-lieutenant of the company of the Duke, returned with seven gashes in his head, the least of which had penetrated to the inner table of the skull, besides four sabre wounds in the arm, and one across the shoulder, which divided the shoulderblade in half. When he was brought to quarters, the Duke judged him to be so desperately wounded, that he absolutely proposed, as they were to march by daylight, to dig a trench for him, and throw him into it, saying, that it was as well that the peasants should finish him. But being moved with pity, I told him (says Paré), that the captain might yet be cured: many gentlemen of the company joined with me in begging that he might be allowed to go with the baggage, since I was willing to dress and cure him. This was accordingly granted: I dressed him, and put him into a small well-covered bed in a cart drawn by one horse. I was at once physician, surgeon, apothecary, and cook to him; and, thank God, I did cure him in the end, to the admiration of all the troops: and out of their first booty, the menat-arms gave me a crown a-piece, and the archers half-a-crown each."

His reputation was now so high, that no expedition of importance, especially if generalled by a prince of the blood, or one of the higher nobility, was considered complete without his presence. This was accordingly solicited by the old King of Navarre, more commonly called the Duc de Vendôme, on an occasion of that kind. But being tired of a military life, and disgusted with its cruelties and horrors, he endeavoured to evade the proposal, alleging the illness of his wife, and other excuses: but the Duke would take no denial; and at last he consented to accompany him to the siege of Chateau le Comte. There he acquitted himself so well, that upon the warm encomiums of the Duke he was received into the service of Henry the Second, in 1552, being then but thirty-three years old. From this time he lived at the court, where, with other advantages, obtained not less by his behaviour and wit than his skill, he enjoyed, though a Huguenot, the especial favour of the Queen, Catherine de' Medici, who was fond of conversing with him in her own language, with which Paré had become well acquainted in his Italian campaign. She served him powerfully on several important occasions.

Paré, however, still continued to frequent the camp, when any emergency seemed to demand his services. Such an occasion occurred at the renowned siege of Metz, in the winter of 1552, conducted by Charles V. in person, with the Duke of Alva and 120,000 men, against a garrison of 6000, which ended, after two months, in the disastrous retreat of the besiegers. The defence was most gal

lantly carried on by the flower of the French army, headed by many of the higher noblesse, and several of the princes of the blood, under the Duke of Guise. It has been already mentioned that gunshot wounds were at that time thought to have something poisonous about them; and the severe cold, and other circumstances of that siege, being such as unusually to depress and harass the garrison, their wounds proved almost uniformly fatal; and the idea arose and gained ground, that Charles had ordered his bullets to be actually poisoned. Paré alone was thought able to meet the necessity of the case in such an extremity; and the demand for his assistance became so pressing in the dispirited garrison, that at the instance of the Duke of Guise the King was induced to send him. He was stealthily introduced by the treachery of one of Charles's captains, for a bribe of 1500 crowns, and his appearance on the ramparts was hailed by the troops with the most extravagant expressions of joy. "Now that Paré is with us," they cried, "we shall not perish of our wounds." Their spirits revived, and the successful issue of their arduous struggle is generally ascribed to the presence of Paré.

Upon the raising of the siege, of which, as is usual in his writings, he gives a most lively and humorous account, Paré returned to court. In 1553 he was sent on a like errand to the siege of Hesdin, which, after a vigorous defence, and against the faith of a capitulation, was pillaged by the troops of the Duke of Savoy. Paré was himself one of the prisoners, but escaped in disguise after various adventures, and returned to Paris; notwithstanding the tempting offers of the Duke of Savoy, who had witnessed his skill, though kept in ignorance of his name.

He was sent upon many other missions of the same kind; as to the fields of St. Quentin and Moncontour; to Rouen, where he attended the Duc de Vendôme on occasion of the wound of which he died; and to St. Denys, where he performed the same unwelcome duty for the Constable. The long intervals of these services he always passed at court, in the enjoyment of his well-earned reputation and favour.

On the death of Henry II. in 1559, occasioned by an accident at a tournament, Francis II., his eldest son by Catherine de' Medici, succeeded to the crown. He immediately confirmed Paré in his situation of surgeon in ordinary and counsellor. It will not be supposed that he could enjoy this constant favour and good fortune without the usual drawback in the excited jealousy of his professional rivals. Their rancour was at length carried to such a pitch, that they gravely accused him of causing the premature death of Francis in 1560, by injecting poison into his ear under the pretext of treating him for an inflam.