Harvard Classics, vol 38 | Page 3

where he
received an appointment as house surgeon at the Hotel Dieu. After
three or four years of valuable experience in this hospital, he set up in
private practise in Paris, but for the next thirty years he was there only
in the intervals of peace; the rest of the time he followed the army. He
became a master barber-surgeon in 1541.
In Pare's time the armies of Europe were not regularly equipped with a
medical service. The great nobles were accompanied by their private
physicians; the common soldiers doctored themselves, or used the
services of barber-surgeons and quacks who accompanied the army as
adventurers. "When Pare joined the army" says Paget, "he went simply
as a follower of Colonel Montejan, having neither rank, recognition,
nor regular payment. His fees make up in romance for their irregularity:
a cask of wine, fifty double ducats and a horse, a diamond, a collection
of crowns and half-crowns from the ranks, other honorable presents and
of great value'; from the King himself, three hundred crowns, and a
promise he would never let him be in want; another diamond, this time
from the finger of a duchess: and a soldier once offered a bag of gold to
him."
When Pare was a man of seventy, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
in Paris made an attack on him on account of his use of the ligature
instead of cauterizing after amputation. In answer, Pare appealed to his
successful experience, and narrated the "Journeys in Diverse Places"
here printed. This entertaining volume gives a vivid picture, not merely
of the condition of surgery in the sixteenth century, but of the military
life of the time; and reveals incidentally a personality of remarkable
vigor and charm. Pare's own achievements are recorded with modest
satisfaction: "I dressed him, and God healed him," is the refrain. Pare
died in Paris in December, 1590.

JOURNEYS IN DIVERSE PLACES
[Footnote: The present translation is taken from Mr. Stephen Paget's
"Ambroise Pare and His Times" by arrangement with Messrs. G. P.
Putnam's Sons.]
1537-1569
THE JOURNEY TO TURIN. 1537
I will here shew my readers the towns and places where I found a way

to learn the art of surgery: for the better instruction of the young
surgeon.
And first, in the year 1536, the great King Francis sent a large army to
Turin, to recover the towns and castles that had been taken by the
Marquis du Guast, Lieutenant-General of the Emperor. M. the
Constable, then Grand Master, was Lieutenant-General of the army,
and M. de Montejan was Colonel-General of the infantry, whose
surgeon I was at this time. A great part of the army being come to the
Pass of Suze, we found the enemy occupying it; and they had made
forts and trenches, so that we had to fight to dislodge them and drive
them out. And there were many killed and wounded on both sides,--but
the enemy were forced to give way and retreat into the castle, which
was captured, part of it, by Captain Le Rat, who was posted on a little
hill with some of his soldiers, whence they fired straight on the enemy.
He received an arquebus-shot in his right ankle, and fell to the ground
at once, and then said, "Now they have got the Rat." I dressed him, and
God healed him.
We entered pell-mell into the city, and passed over the dead bodies, and
some not yet dead, hearing them cry under our horses' feet; and they
made my heart ache to hear them. And truly I repented I had left Paris
to see such a pitiful spectacle. Being come into the city, I entered into a
stable, thinking to lodge my own and my man's horse, and found four
dead soldiers, and three propped against the wall, their features all
changed, and they neither saw, heard, nor spake, and their clothes were
still smouldering where the gunpowder had burned them. As I was
looking at them with pity, there came an old soldier who asked me if
there were any way to cure them; I said no. And then he went up to
them and cut their throats, gently, and without ill will toward them.
Seeing this great cruelty, I told him he was a villain: he answered he
prayed God, when he should be in such a plight, he might find someone
to do the same for him; that he should not linger in misery.
To come back to my story, the enemy were called on to surrender,
which they did, and left the city with only their lives saved, and the
white stick in their hands; and most of them went off to the Chateau de
Villane, where about two hundred Spaniards were stationed. M. the
Constable