Ambrose Pare, the great French surgeon, was another illustrious
instance of close observation, patient application, and
indefatigable perseverance. He was the son of a barber at Laval,
in Maine, where he was born in 1509. His parents were too poor to
send him to school, but they placed him as foot-boy with the cure
of the village, hoping that under that learned man he might pick up
an education for himself. But the cure kept him so busily employed
in grooming his mule and in other menial offices that the boy found
no time for learning. While in his service, it happened that the
celebrated lithotomist, Cotot, came to Laval to operate on one of
the cure's ecclesiastical brethren. Pare was present at the
operation, and was so much interested by it that he is said to have
from that time formed the determination of devoting himself to the
art of surgery.
Leaving the cure's household service, Pare apprenticed himself to a
barber-surgeon named Vialot, under whom he learnt to let blood,
draw teeth, and perform the minor operations. After four years'
experience of this kind, he went to Paris to study at the school of
anatomy and surgery, meanwhile maintaining himself by his trade of
a barber. He afterwards succeeded in obtaining an appointment as
assistant at the Hotel Dieu, where his conduct was so exemplary,
and his progress so marked, that the chief surgeon, Goupil,
entrusted him with the charge of the patients whom he could not
himself attend to.
Pages:
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201