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Ambroise Paré (; – 20 December 1590) was a French barber surgeon who served in that role for kings Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III. He is considered one of the fathers of surgery and modern forensic pathology and a pioneer in surgical techniques and battlefield medicine, especially in the treatment of wounds. He was also an anatomist, invented several surgical instruments, and was a member of the Parisian barber surgeon guild.
In his personal notes about the care he delivered to Captain Rat, in the Piémont campaign (1537–1538), Paré wrote: Je le pansai, Dieu le guérit ("I bandaged him and God healed him"). This epitomises a philosophy that he used throughout his career.Jean-Pierre Poirier, Ambroise Paré, Paris, 2006, p. 42.In 1522, near Metz, a citizen had been pierced by twelve sword thrusts and was left to die; but Paré was able to treat him: "I was his doctor, pharmacist, surgeon and cook: I bandaged him until the end of the treatment, and God healed him." (Jean-Michel Delacomptée, Ambroise Paré, La main savante, Gallimard, 2007, pp. 166–167.) originally from Voyage d'Allemagne, Œuvres, t. III, p. 698. Elsewhere Paré also wrote: "Preservation lies more in the divine providence than in the physician or surgeon’s advice." (Jean-Pierre Poirier, Ambroise Paré, Paris, 2006, p. 33.) These words, inscribed on his statue in Laval, are reminiscent of the Latin adage medicus curat, natura sanat, "The physician cures, nature heals".
Paré also reintroduced the ligature of arteries (first used by Galen and later described by Al-Zahrawi) instead of cauterization during amputation.Paget (1897), p. 26. The usual method of sealing wounds by searing with a red-hot iron often failed to arrest the bleeding and caused patients to die of shock. For the ligature technique he designed the " Bec de Corbeau" ("crow's beak"), a predecessor to modern . Although ligatures often spread infection, it was still an important breakthrough in surgical practice. Paré detailed the technique of using ligatures to prevent hemorrhaging during amputation in his 1564 book Treatise on Surgery. During his work with injured soldiers, Paré documented the pain experienced by amputees which they perceive as sensation in the 'phantom' amputated limb. Paré believed that occur in the brain (the consensus of the medical community today) and not in remnants of the limb. News.nationalgeographic.com He also performed many neurosurgical procedures.
In 1542, during the siege of Perpignan, Paré, accompanying the French army, employed a novel technique to aid in bullet extraction. During a battle, Maréchal de Brissac was wounded, having been shot in the shoulder. When finding the bullet seemed impossible, Paré had the idea to ask the victim to put himself in the exact position he was in when shot. The bullet was then found and removed by Henry's personal surgeon, Nicole Lavernault.Fabricio Cardenas, Vieux papiers des Pyrénées-Orientales, Ambroise Paré à Perpignan en 1542, 13 February 2015
Paré was also an important figure in the progress of obstetrics in the middle of the 16th century. He revived the practice of podalic version, and showed how even in cases of head presentation, surgeons with this operation could often deliver the infant safely, instead of having to dismember the infant and extract the infant piece by piece. During his time at the Hôtel-Dieu, Paré directly influenced the education of future royal midwife Louise Boursier. Dunn PM. "Louise Bourgeois (1563–1636): royal midwife of France." Archives of Disease in Childhood – Fetal and Neonatal Edition 2004;89:F185–F187. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/adc.2003.037929
Paré also introduced the lancing of infants' gums using a lancet during teething, in the belief that teeth were failing to emerge from the gums due to lack of a pathway, and that this failure was a cause of death. This belief and practice persisted for centuries, with some exceptions, until towards the end of the nineteenth century lancing became increasingly controversial and was then abandoned."The lancet and the gum-lancet: 400 years of teething babies", Ann Dally, The Lancet, Volume 348, Issue 9043, 21–28 December 1996, Pages 1710–1711
Paré was ably seconded by his pupil Jacques Guillemeau, who translated his work into Latin, and at a later period himself wrote a treatise on midwifery. An English translation of it was published in 1612 with the title Childbirth; or, The Happy Delivery of Women.
In 1552, Paré was accepted into royal service of the Valois Dynasty under Henry II; he was however unable to cure the king's fatal blow to the head, which he received during a tournament in 1559. Paré stayed in the service of the kings of France to the end of his life in 1590, ultimately serving Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III.
According to Henri IV's chief minister Sully, Paré was a Huguenot and on 24 August 1572, the day of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, Paré's life was saved when King Charles IX locked him in a clothes closet. He died in Paris on 20 December 1590 from natural causes in his 80th year, and is buried at the church of Saint André-des-Arts.Mallon (1913), p. 343. While there is evidence that Paré was sympathetic to the Huguenot cause, he seems to have kept up the appearance of being Catholic to avoid danger: he was twice married, had his children baptized, and was buried according to the Catholic faith.Paget (1897), pp. 251–254.
A collection of Paré's works (he published these separately throughout his life, based on his experiences treating soldiers on the battlefield) was published at Paris in 1575. They were frequently reprinted, several editions appeared in German and Dutch, and among the English translations was that of Thomas Johnson (1634).
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