June 11, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



847 



Listen to his quaint story of how he dis- 

 covered that gunshot wounds were not 

 poisoned. In 1536 



it chanced on a time that by reason of the multi- 

 tude that were hurt I wanted this Oil ["oyl of 

 Elders Scalding hot with a little Treacle mixed 

 therewith"]. Now because there were some few 

 left to be dressed I was forced . . . that I might 

 not leave them undrest to apply a digestive made 

 of the yolk of an egg, Oil of Eoses and Turpen- 

 tine. I could not sleep all that night for I was 

 troubled in mind, and the dressing of the preced- 

 ent day (which I judged unfit), troubled my 

 thoughts; and I feared that the next day I should 

 find them dead, or at the point of death by the 

 poison of the wounds. . . . Therefore I rose early 

 in the morning. I visited my Patients and be- 

 yond expectation I found such as I had dressed 

 with a digestive only, free from vehemency of 

 pain, to have had a good rest and that their 

 wounds were not inflamed . . . but . . . the others 

 that were burnt with the Scalding Oyl were fever- 

 ish tormented with much pain . . . and swoln. 

 When I had many times tried this in divers others, 

 I thought this much, that neither I nor any other 

 should ever cauterize any wounded with Gun- 

 shot.5 



But he still advocated the actual cautery 

 ■for arresting hemorrhage even down to 

 early in 1552. But later in that same year 

 he changed his practise and thus describes 

 his introduction of the ligature — a famous 

 advance. 



I confess here freely and with great regret that 

 heretofore my practise has been entirely different 

 from that which I describe at present after ampu- 

 tations. ... I advise the young surgeon to aban- 

 don, such cruelty and inhumanity and follow this 

 better method. . . . Having several times seen the 

 suture of veins and arteries for recent wounds 

 which were attended by hemorrhage I have 

 thought that it might be well to do the same after 

 the amputation of a limb. Having consulted in 

 reference to this matter with Etienne de la 

 Eivifere, Ordinary Surgeon to the King, and other 

 surgeons sworn of Paris, and having declared my 

 opinion to them, they advised that we should make 

 the experiment [espreuve] on the first patient that 

 we had, but [note his cautious uncertainty] but 

 we would have the cautery all ready in case of any 



5 Johnson's "Pare," p. 272. 



failure of the ligature. I have done this on the 

 person of a postilion named Pirou Garbier, whose 

 right leg I cut off . . . following a fracture.^ 



At the Siege of Danvilliers^ also in 1552 

 he records the amputation of the leg of a 

 gentleman in the suite of M. de Rohan 

 "without applying the actual cautery." 

 In another plaee^ Pare says that he was 

 taught this new method "by the special 

 favor of the Sacred Deity. ' ' He also refers 

 to Galen 's advocacy of the ligature. After 

 many trials, Pare definitely adopted the 

 ligature and "bid eternal adieu to all hot 

 Irons and Cauteries." 



He does not seem to have lost sleep over 

 the ligature as he did sixteen years before 

 when he abandoned the boiling oil and the 

 hot pitch. Both were experiments on 

 human beings. "Human vivisection" 

 would have been the outcry of a sixteenth- 

 century antivivisection society. But had 

 he or some successor not made these experi- 

 ments we should still be filling gunshot 

 wounds with boiling oil and hot pitch and 

 searing amputation fiaps with the actual 

 cautery. How much greater a boon to 

 humanity it would have been if years earlier 

 instead of experimenting in both cases on 

 human beings first, Pare had experimented 

 on a few animals to determine whether gun- 

 shot wounds were poisoned and whether the 

 ligature or the cautery was the best means 

 of arresting hemorrhage. 



We can also incidentally learn how the 

 doctrine of euthanasia was applied in 

 Pare's time in the case of the desperately 

 wounded by the following incident. 



In his first campaign, entering a stable 

 where he expected to put up his own and 

 his man's horses, Pare 



6 Malgaigne 's "Parg," Chap. XXVI., pp. 

 227, 230. 



7 Malgaigne 's "Par6," III., 698. 



8 Johnson 's ' ' Par4, ' ' London, 1678, Book XII., 

 Chap. XXIV., p. 305. 



