Ambroise Pare was a 16th century French surgeon who made several important contributions to the field of surgery. Through his experience as a military surgeon, he discovered that treating gunshot wounds with a new "digestive" ointment method healed patients better than the standard practice of cauterizing the wounds with boiling oil. He published his findings in a landmark book in 1545. Pare is also known for introducing ligatures to control bleeding during surgery and new techniques like suturing wounds. He served as a surgeon to four French kings and helped establish surgery as a respected medical profession.
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Ambroise Pare
1. Ambroise Pare (1510 – 1590)
Dr.P.Sindhu, Assistant Professor of History
Mannar Thirumalai Naicker College, Madurai.
2. Introduction
During the Renaissance the great progress in the
study of anatomy and physiology shed new light on
the structure and function of organs.
Progress in anatomy brought about improvement in
the quality of surgery.
A safe surgery is possible only with an adequate
knowledge of anatomy.
The greatest surgeon of the 16th century was the
Frenchman Ambroise Pare, an admirer of Vesalius.
The career of Ambroise Pare, the most famous
surgeon of the Renaissance, illustrates many
surgical aspects of the period.
3. He made a thorough study of the anatomy of the
human body through experience and wrote an
abstract of his work in French.
He is noted for his contribution to surgery and to
the antiseptic (germ-killing) care of wound.
4. Early Life
Ambroise Pare, son of artisan was born in Laval in
Paris in 1510.
In his early career, he became the rustic barber’s
apprentice in an hospital.
The practice of medicine in Paris was regulated by a
stern and rigid code.
Physicians at the top of the faculty of medicine were
powerful.
They had university degrees and their word became
law in the medical field.
6. They did not operate, but only treated wounds using a hot iron
to stop bleeding.
7. Most of the actual work, with little money and no prestige,
went to the barber surgeon.
It was the barbers who in between hair cutting and wig
curling, actually performed the amputation ordered by the
surgeon.
8. At the absolute bottom, came the barber’s
apprentices.
These were boys with no money, no
knowledge of Latin and no university degree.
Ambroise Pare became a student of a barber
surgeon.
9. In 1529 he went to Paris at the age of 19, to work at
the Hotel Dieu, the world's oldest hospital.
10. In this hospital he got the opportunity to perform
autopsies and to dissect dead bodies.
Pare then began a long career as a military surgeon
and finally attained the post of first surgeon to
successive kings of France.
11. As a Surgeon in Military
As a surgeon to the military, he accompanied the
fighting troops in the military campaign.
The campaign of the French troops in Italy from
1536 to 1545 gave him great experience in military
surgery, as a barber’s apprentice, and realised the
strange experience of treating the gunshot wounds by
pouring boiling oil over the wound.
If the wound occurred in arm or leg, they usually
followed the practice of cutting them off.
Then the bleeding in the wound was stopped by the
stumping of a red hot iron.
This was the only method adopted to treat the
wound.
14. The idea of pouring boiling oil into the wounds of the
injured man, seemed terrible to Pare.
But he was disqualified in the field to argue with the
expert to change the a barbarous method of
treatment .
Pare’s major achievement was his rejection of the
pervasive (general) practice of cauterizing (burning)
gunshot wound with boiling oil and introduced a
new method of treatment.
At one war, when he treated the wounded soldiers, he
found the run out of the boiling oil.
The men would die unless wounds were treated.
The shortage of the oil was in shortage he was forced
to apply a method called “digestive”.
15. He treated the wound with an ointment of egg yolk,
rose oil and turpentine with good results.
Surprisingly the wounded soldiers who were treated
in the new method, were feeling remarkably well.
The young surgeons were not at the moment, sure of
the new method of treatment.
Pare arrived at a conclusion that he would not use
boiling oil on gun-shot wounds.
Pare relied heavily on his own experiments and
observations and made contributions to the
development of his new techniques.
His chance discovery of the new method of
treatment healed the gunshot wounds better without
the customary application of boiling oil.
16. Pare then returned from the military campaign,
married and settled sown in Paris, and his wife
objected to his new method of treatment.
But he was determined to follow the newly
discovered method of treatment.
He began arguing about campfires with many
opponents.
In 1552, his opponents were two young surgeons on
their second military campaign.
He said, “We are cruel and inhuman surgeons.
His humanitarian feeling forced him to say that the
surgeons were no better than Romans who stoned
people to death.
His new method of surgery laid the foundation of
modern surgery.
17. Pare’s greatest contribution was the introduction of
the new technique in surgery.
Pare applied a new technique using thread and a
needle to close the edge of the wound.
Pare made his incision and sawed through the bone.
He was the first to control bleeding by the ligation
(tying off).
It was Pare who put first his technique on a firm,
systematic and Practical basis.
He treated the gunshots with simple dressing.
He said, “I dress the wound, God heals it”.
18.
19.
20. Pare announced his discoveries in 1545 in a
landmark book “The Method of Treating Wounds
Made by Harquebuses and Other Fire Arms”.
This is the first surgical publication foe several
centuries and very first research work on surgery in
French language.
Pare enhanced the prestige of surgery through his
dedication and his new methods of surgery.
He wrote other medical treaties in French and
devised artificial limbs.
He invented several surgical and orthopedic devices.
The human organs, lost during the war, were
replaced by planting artificial organs which received
a new status.
21.
22. He also contributed much in the field of obstetrics,
a branch of medicine and surgery concerned with
child birth.
The introduction of suitable modifications in times
of child birth led to safe deliveries.
Pare served thirty years as an army surgeon.
His service were used by the French kings and he
became surgeon to four French kings, Henry II,
Franchise II, Charles IX and Henry III.
23. Pare was French Protestant, popularly called
Huguenot.
During the religious riot between the protestants and
Catholics, at the massacre of St.Bartholomew in
1572, his life was saved by king Charles IX.
After his retirement from army, he settled in Paris,
and wrote autobiography giving a clear picture of his
life time.
He was a famous for integrity and humanitarian
concern and dedication to the medical profession.
He died in Paris on December 20, 1590.
The discovery that bleeding in a major surgery could
be controlled by the use of the ligature, was his
greatest contribution.
24. Pare laid the foundation for the future
progress of modern surgery.
For his outstanding contribution to the field
of surgery he has been rightly called the
Father of Surgery.