Pare

Who was Pare?

Born in France in 1510, he was a army surgeon who worked in the civil war

What were Pare’s notable discoveries?

Using a new ointment for healing wounds, using ligatures and developing the first artificial limbs

What new ointment did Pare use?

While working in the army, he ran out of oil, which was heated up to be boiling and then poured over the wound to close the blood vessels (by burning them, called cauterisation). However, although successful at stopping blood loss, it increased the likelihood of infection and was extremely painful. So, Pare instead used a mixture of egg yolk, rose oil and turpentine, which ensured that the patient was in much less pain and had a reduced chance of infection

What are ligatures?

When blood vessels are tied to stop bleeding, which was less damaging to the body, but increased the chance of infection as surgeons’ hands and the ligatures were often unclean, so death was at an increased risk

What did Pare prove?

That new methods could be much more successful than centuries old ideas, writing several books about his ideas and experiences

Why didn’t Pare have a bigger impact?

There was no knowledge of germ theory and using carbolic acid, so ligatures couldn’t be properly sterilised and it seemed that Pare’s success rate was lower - this meant that it didn’t have a larger impact until later on