(From von Gurlt’s reproduction of the portrait published by Le Paulmier, Paris, 1885.)
Strange as it might appear, if history did not furnish many examples of the same character, Paré’s merits as a man and as a surgeon were not as fully appreciated as they deserved to be until after the lapse of nearly two centuries. In 1812 the Société de Médecine de Bordeaux offered a prize for the best eulogy of Ambroise Paré, and it was awarded to Vimont. Finally, in 1840, a fine bust of the distinguished surgeon was completed by the sculptor David of Angers, and set up in bronze in Laval, Paré’s birthplace. The portrait here reproduced from the engraving in von Gurlt’s work represents the bust in question (Fig. 25).
A complete collection of the writings of Paré has been prepared by J. F. Malgaigne, the distinguished French surgeon, and published in three very large volumes (Paris, 1840–1841). This collection is based on a careful comparison and collation of all the previously published editions. The contents of these volumes cover very nearly the entire range of surgery.
CHAPTER XLI
SURGERY IN GREAT BRITAIN DURING THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
In Great Britain the cultivation of the science of medicine began at a much later date than it did on the continent of Europe, and, so far as may be judged from the facts within our reach, there were, in the early part of the sixteenth century, very few Englishmen who could justly lay claim to the possession of more than the rudiments of the art of surgery. Two centuries earlier, as I have already stated in a previous chapter, there were three men in England who gained considerable fame in this department of medicine. They were Gilbert “the Englishman” (1210), John of Gaddesden (1320), the author of the famous book entitled “Rosa Anglica,” and John of Ardern (circa 1350); but afterward, for a period of nearly two hundred years, the records fail to reveal to us a single surgeon of any note. Then during the sixteenth century the only English surgeons whose names deserve to be perpetuated are Gale, Clowes and Woodall, of whom I shall presently give brief accounts. They were all at one time or another, as in the case of the leading continental surgeons of that period, officially connected with the army. Some idea of the unsatisfactory state of the medical service in the English army of that period may be gathered from the statements made by Gale regarding this matter. From his account it appears that in 1544 the army was accompanied by a miscellaneous crowd of men who were supposed to be in some measure physicians, but who in reality were uneducated quacks, vendors of all sorts of dressings and washes for wounds, of infallible cures for gunshot injuries, etc. The mortality in the English camp was, as might readily be expected, very heavy. The same state of things existed, at a somewhat later date, in the fleet sent against the Spanish Armada. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that very few of the educated surgeons were willing to accept service in the English army or the English fleet, especially as the pay which they received was no greater than that of the drummers and trumpeters. Toward the end of the century much greater attention was paid to the care of the wounded and crippled, and, in corroboration of this, it may be stated that Henry the Fourth, King of France,—who, it may safely be assumed, was influenced to take this step by the enlightened advice of Ambroise Paré,—ordered the establishment of military hospitals for the use of the army which was at that time besieging Amiens. And again, at a later date (1603), there was established at Paris a retreat for old and infirm or mutilated officers and soldiers.
It is an interesting fact that during the year 1544, while Henry the Eighth of England, in alliance with the German Emperor Charles the Fifth, was carrying on the war against Francis the First, King of France, there were present, on the soil of the latter country, all the leading European surgeons of that period—viz., Ambroise Paré, with the French army which was laying siege to Boulogne-sur-Mer (captured a few months earlier by the English troops); Thomas Gale, the most famous surgeon of that day in England, with the army of the besieged; and Vesalius and Daza Chacon with the troops of Charles the Fifth at Landrecy (near the Belgian boundary, south of Brussels) and at St. Didier (in the northeastern part of France). I have already, in preceding chapters, given brief accounts of the lives and professional accomplishments of all these surgeons with the exception of Gale, and it only remains now to supply such information as may be obtainable concerning the latter and also concerning his contemporaries, the English surgeons Clowes and Woodall.
Thomas Gale.—Thomas Gale was born in London in 1507, practiced medicine for some years in that city, and then, in the capacity of a surgeon, entered the service of the army under Henry the Eighth. At a later date he joined the army of Philip the Second of Spain. In 1544 he was present at the battle of Montreuil in France, and he was also present at the siege of St. Quentin, in 1557. Two years later he returned to London and became a member of the Barber-Surgeons’ Company. His death occurred in 1587.
Gale was the author of several books on surgical subjects, the most important of these works being that which deals with gunshot wounds. His views regarding wounds of this nature agree in the main with the teachings of Ambroise Paré; and yet, according to von Gurlt, he appears to have formed his opinions independently, for he does not once mention that surgeon’s name. He was not only a skilful surgeon, but also a man of scientific and literary tastes, as shown by his translations of some of Galen’s writings and of Giovanni da Vigo’s treatise on surgery, and also by his own published works. His book on gunshot wounds, to which reference has already been made, is the one which reflects the greatest credit upon the author. One of its chief merits is to be found in the fact that it enabled the physicians of England to keep in some measure abreast of their brethren on the continent, at least in the matter of treatment by surgical means. In one part of the work he makes reference to the belief, which was held at that time by many surgeons, that the bullet not only scorched the flesh of the wound which it inflicted but also introduced into it a poisonous element. I quote here one or two extracts from the comments to which I have just referred:—
The usuall Gonnepouder is not venemous, nother the shotte of such hoteness as is able to warme the fleshe, much lesse to make an ascar.... Hange a bagge ful of Gonnepouder on a place convenient: and then stand so far of as your peece wil shote leavell, and shote at the same, and you shall see the Gonnepouder to bee no more set on fyer with the heat of the stone [used as a bullet] than if you caste a cold stone at it.
An English translation of Paré’s book, says von Haller, was not published until 1577. It is therefore not strange that Gale, whose book was printed fourteen years earlier (i.e., in 1563), should have made no mention of that author’s method of applying ligatures to the bleeding vessels of an amputation stump. The first reference (in English) to this plan of preventing hemorrhage from the divided blood-vessels in an amputation stump occurs—so far as I have been able to discover—in the treatise published in London by William Clowes, in 1588, under the title “A prooved practise for all young chirurgians etc.” Clowes, however, erroneously gives the credit for this important procedure to Guillemeau, one of Paré’s pupils.