Ambroise Paré ; Surgeon to Paupers and Kings

The father of modern surgery, Ambroise Paré, was an astonishing and awe-inspiring physician.

He treated paupers as kings, yet was the surgeon of four kings of France.

He challenged the medical community of his day and paved the way for surgeons to be finally recognized.

He was born in 1510 to a family of modest means in a rural part of France near Laval.  That area, the Mayenne,  remains today quite agricultural.

His father was a chest maker. By the time he was 15, he started an apprenticeship with a nearby barber-surgeon.

He then traveled to Paris to study at Hopital Dieu, still right next to Notre Dame, where for three years he had plenty of cadavers to practice his surgical skills.

Paris at that time, in 1530 had a population of around 150,000.  The medical community was divided into three categories of practitioners.

The barber surgeons were considered the lowest, and next up was then the master surgeons.  Only physicians who were members of the Faculty of Medicine were considered true medical doctors.  They taught and published in Latin, which Ambroise barely knew.

Unable to afford the exam to be a formal barber-surgeon, Ambroise embarked off to the battlefields, where he began his revolutionary career.

His first was an arduous one traveling over the Alps towards Turin in Italy. It was there in his early twenties, that he made his first medical discovery.

While treating the multitude of soldiers, he revolutionized the care of gunshot wounds, which were at that time cauterized with boiling oil.

He wrote of much empathy for these poor men already in pain to be subjected to such barbaric “treatment”, which was more painful than a gunshot, and that made their wounds worse.

He concocted an ointment made out of egg yolks, oil of roses and turpentine.  He noticed that to all soldiers that he had applied this balm, their wounds started to heal with much less pain.

It was on these battlefields that his reputation took off to the extent that his fame reached word of the king.

On another campaign fighting the English, at Boulogne sur Mer, a sea-side village on the English Channel, he was met with a challenge that would define forever his medical career.

The Duc de Guise, who was a personal friend of the king suffered a horrible blow to his head of a spear that penetrated into his brain.

Since the Duc was still conscious and able to speak, Ambroise dared to accomplished what had never before done. He gently and with much skill removed the spear, while sparing further damage to the Duc.

Thanks to all of those days of cadaver dissection at Hôpital Dieu, he had a photocopy memory of brain anatomy.  In a few days, this man was walking around and word spread of this amazing feat.

He soon started to practice in Paris and was accorded the title of master barber-surgeon.  He married in 1542 to a woman with whom he had three children.

After her death, he married again and had 6 more children. He lived on the left bank next to the present boulevard St Michel in an area called St Andre des Arts , which today falls in the 6 th arrondissement of Paris.

He also had a vineyard on the outskirts of the city, and was noted to tout the virtues of wine as a healing agent.

A great mystery and intrigue followed him to his grave to whether or not he was a Huguenot. At that time Protestants were persecuted, with threats of death.

Although he and his family received all the sacraments of the Catholic church, he certainly could have hidden his religious beliefs out of sheer fear of death to him and family.

There are accounts that King Charles lX, (Queen Margot’s brother) knew he was and saved him during the Saint Barthelemy massacre.

Ambroise, inferring he was Protestant, had written earlier that someone had tried to poison him because of Catholic hatred towards Protestants.

He integrated his spirituality into his everyday life and the treatment of his patients.  Quotes of scriptures are noted amongst his writings.

He was a champion for the poor and was said to be quite charitable towards all.  I love his quote in response to King Charles lX, who asked if he would receive better treatment than the poor.

Ambroise replied, “Sire that is impossible, for I already treat the poor like kings”.  He was also known to have publicly denounced an archbishop for hypocrisy and lack of empathy for the poor.

He was a phenomenal writer who published multiple volumes concerning his treatments and care of wounds, fractures, dislocations, and on illnesses such as smallpox, measles and the plague.

He is even credited for restoring to popularity podalic version, which is an obstetrical manuever to save the fetus by breech birth.

His publishing caused a scandal amongst the physicians of the Faculty of Medicine, who decried that he was not in a position to write about the practice of “medicine” since he was only a surgeon.

With much arrogance, they denounced that he wrote in French rather than Latin, which was the privy of medical academicians.

In doing research for this article I was amazed to see his sketches of the surgical instruments he created.  They are so similar to what we use today.

His knowledge of anatomy is outstanding, as evidence of his many illustrations.

What guided his care and treatment of patients was not theories but practice based evidence of what worked and healed.

He literally revolutionized the treatment and care of trauma wounds.  He  could be called a front-runner it the treatment of battlefield wounds.

He is credited with being the first to use ligature of arteries in doing amputations, rather than just cauterization.

The father of military surgery would certainly befit him today.  Besides inventing surgical instruments, he also created prostheses.

He was more than just a surgeon but was a humanist in the purest of forms, who believed in the dignity of human life without boundaries of socioeconomic rank or social pedigree.

He was said to have been very gentle and always kind, and loving towards animals too.  Rare was the physician who during his day sought to soften the pain and misery of his patients, as Ambroise Paré did.

His heart was his guide and the spirit of God anointed his practice to save thousands of men, women and children in his lifetime.

He had to fight the prejudice of the day that only physicians, had the final say in how to heal the sick.  He worked and healed amongst their prejudicial views, going far beyond them with his lifesaving techniques.

He died in 1590 at the age of 80.  He had survived wars , the black plague and the prejudice of the medical community.   Some of his children went on to be doctors and surgeons.

His life was a testimony of a man who believed in himself and his convictions of healing.   He was quite aware of the spiritual dimension of being a healer and humbly credited God, rather than himself.

One can sum up his philosophy and character in my favorite quote of his;  ” I bandaged him and God healed him”.