Image courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
Looking at:
Renaissance
Surgery
and
From The Fabric of the Human Body
Pare’s Work
In a little more detail.
Renaissance Anatomy
and Surgery Timeline
Please ‘click’ on one of the following buttons
Battlefield Wounds
Pain, Infection and Bleeding
Examples of Pare’s ‘other’ work
Evidence Exercise, Recap and Revision
During The Renaissance muskets were being used more and more during battles.
Gunshot wounds therefore became an increasing problem for surgeons.
Can you think of any problems associated with gunshot wounds that surgeons
during The Renaissance would have to deal with?
1
Gunshot wounds
2
3
During The Renaissance muskets were being used more and more during battles. Gunshot
wounds therefore became an increasing problem for surgeons.
Can you think of any problems associated with gunshot wounds that surgeons
during The Renaissance would have to deal with?
The scale of
damage caused by
musket balls
entering and
exiting the body
(Shattered bone,
ripped muscle and
tissue, etc)
1
Gunshot wounds
2
3
During The Renaissance muskets were being used more and more during battles. Gunshot
wounds therefore became an increasing problem for surgeons.
Can you think of any problems associated with gunshot wounds that surgeons
during The Renaissance would have to deal with?
The scale of
damage caused by
musket balls
entering and
exiting the body
(Shattered bone,
ripped muscle and
tissue, etc)
1
Gunshot wounds
Musket balls carrying infection
deep inside the body. Musket
balls dragged dirt, material
and lead with them as they
entered the body
2
3
During The Renaissance muskets were being used more and more during battles. Gunshot
wounds therefore became an increasing problem for surgeons.
Can you think of any problems associated with gunshot wounds that surgeons
during The Renaissance would have to deal with?
The scale of
damage caused by
musket balls
entering and
exiting the body
(Shattered bone,
ripped muscle and
tissue, etc)
1
Gunshot wounds
Musket balls carrying infection
deep inside the body. Musket
balls dragged dirt, material
and lead with them as they
entered the body
2
3
New methods of surgery had to
be learnt to deal with the new
types of wounds being
encountered
Pare used the accepted treatment for gunshot wounds used by
surgeons at the time – cauterisation - until he stumbled across a
new method for treating these injuries.
Cauterisation involved burning the wound, either with a red hot
cautery iron, or by pouring boiling hot oil (sometimes mixed with
treacle) into the wound.
Pare knew that this method of treating wounds caused the patient great pain, but
did as the other surgeons did, applying the oil as hot as possible to burn away any
possible infection that had set in. Then, one day he ran out of oil and was forced to
use an alternative.
Click here to find out what that alternative was
Egg Yolk
Rose Oil
Turpentine
Pare had published his idea for treating gunshot wounds in 1545. The account of
how he made his discovery was not published however until 1585 in The Apology.
I wonder what Pare may have been apologising for?
Pare describes how he ran out of oil and was ‘forced to use an ointment made from
yolks of eggs, oil of roses, and turpentine’. Pare feared that this mixture may cause
the soldiers he was treating more pain as infection set into the wound. He also
feared that he would return to his patients the next day to find many of them
dead. The patients however told Pare the next morning that the swelling around
their wounds had gone down and that they felt little pain. Those who had been
treated before the oil ran out were much worse off. They were in pain and many
were ‘feverish with….swelling about the edges of their wounds.’
PAIN
BLEEDING
Click on each image
for more information
INFECTION
In order for surgery to be successful the surgeon has to combat the
problems of Pain, Infection and Bleeding. Pare knew this and through his
work tried to tackle and combat the problems associated with each.
With a lack of anaesthetics before and during The Renaissance, doctors
and surgeons knew that their patients could suffer a great deal from the pain
that they felt when injured or wounded. They were also aware of the dangers
involved in operating upon patients. Without adequate anaesthetics (patients
were often given wine or were knocked out) there was the risk that the
patient would feel a great deal of pain and would be conscious for much of
the during the operation.
Patients were also as likely to die of shock on the operating table as from the
infection that set in the wound after the operation was over.
Anaesthetics – Something, usually a drug, that causes a loss of
sensation (such as feeling or pain).
With a lack of antiseptics before and during The Renaissance, doctors and
surgeons knew that their patients could suffer a great deal from the infection
that set into a wound before an operation.
They were also aware of the dangers involved in operating upon patients.
Without adequate antiseptics there was a risk that the surgeon would put
germs into the wound himself, sealing the infection deep within the patient.
Because there was no knowledge of germs, medical instruments were not
always cleaned thoroughly and surgeons themselves often failed to ensure
that their hands were clean of dirt and bacteria. It would be some time – long
after The Renaissance - before doctors wore masks and gowns and sterilised
their equipment.
Antiseptics – Substances that help to prevent infection.
If patients lost a lot of blood, either during an operation or from a particularly bad wound,
they were in great danger of not only losing their strength, but of their body not being
able to function properly. In short, they were in all probability going to die. Surgeons
during this time could not, as we do today, transfuse blood or put it back. Some doctors
had experimented with blood transfusions, trying to replace a human’s lost blood
(usually with an animal’s), but patients rarely lived for long afterwards.
Doctors and surgeons did not know, as we do today, about such important factors that
influence blood transfusions, such as how to store blood and knowledge of blood
groups.
Pare, like most surgeons, realised that veins and arteries had to be tied up speedily so
that bleeding could be stopped. Pare therefore used a Crow’s Beak (an instrument that
looks like a set of pliers) to pull out the arteries and silk thread to sew them up.
What are these objects and how do
you think they work?
Images courtesy of the U.S.
National Library of Medicine
This image courtesy of the Clendening
History of Medicine Library,
University of Kansas Medical Centre
Prosthetic limbs like these were
made (or designed) by Pare in the
sixteenth century.
Pare would have worked with
armourers to make and develop these
replacement limbs.
Hands like the one above were operated by a series of catches
and springs. Such a hand was designed for a French Army
Captain who went on to use it in battle.
Pare also invented leg prosthesis.
Image courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
You could use the Whiteboard Pen and Highlighter here
Questions
Image courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
Questions:
1) Note down the objects that have
been placed within this picture.
Next
Question
Questions
Image courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
Questions:
1) Note down the objects that have
been placed within this picture.
Next
Question
2) Explain the significance of each
of these objects in relation to
the work of Ambroise Pare.
Saw
Gun
Trephined Skull
Books
Drill
Jars on the shelf
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