The Anatomist, the Barber-Surgeon, and the King: How the Accidental Death of Henry II of France Changed the World by Seymour I. Schwartz

Author:Seymour I. Schwartz [Schwartz, Seymour I.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: World, Medical, Modern, 16th Century, History
ISBN: 9781633880351
Google: bUCdBAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 2015-04-14T20:35:59+00:00

Fig. 41. Ambroise Paré, age 45.

If the “publish or perish” adage of academia is invoked, the conclusion would be that Paré thrived to the very end of his life. In April 1561, Paré’s pocket-sized book, Anatomie Universelle du Corps Humani (Complete Anatomy of the Human Body), was published. The book, which was dedicated to the king of Navarre, bore the author’s portrait at age forty-five and his motto, “Labor improbus omnia vincit” (Constant work conquers all), and contained 270 pages and 49 illustrations. The anatomical print, which was contained within, was based on the work of Vesalius, to whom Paré gave credit. The surgical illustrations were derived from Paré’s personal experience.

The date of publication of Paré’s La Méthode Curative des Playes. & Fractures de la Teste Humain (The Method of Curing Wounds and Fractures of the Human Head), as it is related to Anatomie Universalle, is confusing. Although the title page of La Méthode bears the date 1561, the anatomical section of that text was derived from Anatomie Universalle. La Méthode was written at the urging of Jean Chapelain, to whom it was dedicated, and was doubtlessly influenced by the trauma sustained by Henry II at a time when ­Champelain was the king and queen’s premier-physician.

On New Year’s Day, 1562, which in the Julian calendar coincided with Easter at the time, Paré was formally appointed the king’s premier-surgeon. In May of that year, Paré traveled with the army, which defeated Huguenot forces at Bourges. Toward the end of that year, before a battle between religious forces took place at Rouen, Paré cared for Antoine de Bourbon, king of Navarre, who sustained a fatal gunshot wound by a sniper. Paré’s clinical acumen was manifest on the occasion. Whereas the other surgeons, who cared for the victim, were optimistic for his recovery, Paré, from the onset, deemed the wound to be fatal.8 Paré continued his active role as a military surgeon, tending to the injured at battles until March 1563 when the Peace of Amboise brought the first War of Religion to a close.

In February 1564, his Dix Livres de Chirurgie (Ten Books of Surgery), dedicated to Charles IX, was published. In that book, we find the first printed description of the use of ligatures rather than cautery during amputation, a practice that Paré initiated at Danvilliers twelve years earlier. In 1564, he embarked on a two-year tour of France with the king.

In November 1567, religious warfare broke out once again in France. During the first battle at Saint Denis, Paré was summoned by the king to care for the seventy-five-year-old Constable Montmorency, who had sustained a pistol-ball wound that injured his spinal cord. The constable died a few days after he was wounded. (The chain-mail armor of the old warrior who served five kings is on display at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

In 1568, Paré’s Traicté De La Peste, De La Petite Verolle & Rougeolle: Avec Une brefue Description de la Lepre (Treatise on the Plague, Smallpox, and Measles with a Brief Description of Leprosy) was published.

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