Paré, AMBROISE

Paré, AMBROISE, the father of modern surgery, was born about the beginning of the 16th century, at Laval, in the French department of Mayenne, was trained at the Hôtel Dieu of Paris, and in 1536 as surgeon joined the army starting for Italy. In a later campaign he improved the mode of treatment of gunshot wounds, which had up to this time been of the most barbarous kind—namely, cauterisation with boiling oil. It was during this campaign that he substituted ligature of the arteries for cauterisation with a red-hot iron after amputation. Many other important improvements in surgery were introduced by him at this time. In September 1552 he was appointed surgeon to King Henry II., and afterwards to Charles IX. and Henry III. He died at Paris, December 22, 1590. His writings, of which the principal was Cinq Livres de Chirurgie (1562), have exercised a great influence on the practice of surgery in all countries. See Stephen Paget, Ambroise Paré and his Times (1897).