'Proper to the duty of a chirurgeon': Ambroise Pare and sixteenth century paediatric surgery

Abstract

Ambroise Pare rose from humble origins to become surgeon to four kings of France. Though he is remembered mainly for his work as a military surgeon and for his advocacy of podalic version, his contribution to surgery was far greater than this.1 In France his works were a mainstay of surgical practice for 250 years. To illustrate his contributions to paediatric surgery we have translated excerpts from the 1849 facsimile copy of his Oeuvres of 1585,2 particularly the seventeenth book which deals with the means and artificial devices used to treat those who have natural defects or defects caused by an accident. We also borrow from the posthumous English translation by Thomas Johnson, 1633, edited in the 1950s by Geoffrey Keynes.3 Pare's aim was to raise the reputation of surgery to honour and esteem. He wrote: 'Five things are proper to the dutie of a chirurgeon. To take away that which is superfluous, to restore to their places such things as are displaced, to separate those things which are joined together, to joyne that which is divided, and to supply the defects of nature.'3 From a time when paediatric surgery was still in its infancy and there was little other recorded writing in this area, Pare's works give an insight into what was surgically possible in the sixteenth century.