Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 271

AMBROISE PARE (1510?-1590) Opera. Apud Jacobum Du-Puys 1582 [12] 884 [22] pp., illus., plates (port.). 34.3 cm.

Paré, of humble Huguenot beginnings and poorly educated, became the sixteenth century's outstanding surgeon and the greatest military surgeon before his fellow countryman, Larrey (see No. 1212 ff.), more than two hundred years later. He began his studies as a barber-surgeon and at age nineteen, while working as a surgical dresser and assistant in a Paris hospital, he began to acquire the fund of practical knowledge for which he became a legend in his own time. Probably his best known innovations were his discarding the use of boiling oil in gunshot wounds and the reintroduction of simple ligature instead of red hot cautery after amputation. He invented many surgical and dental instruments and was especially adept at devising ingenious artificial limbs. Beyond his technical skill and imagination, he was a man of utmost honesty, courage, and great modesty. Although he wrote widely--always in French, as he knew no Latin--his original works are very rare. The first edition of his collected works in French was published in 1579. The present work is the first Latin edition, edited by Paré's pupil, Jacques Guillemeau (1550-1613), who succeeded Paré as surgeon to King Charles IX. It contains a wealth of interesting illustrations showing surgical techniques and instruments, as well as a portrait of the author.

See Related Record(s): 1212

Cited references: Cushing P88; Durling 3531; Osler 661; Waller 7175; Wellcome 4824

Gift of John Martin, M.D.