Historical Figures

Ambroise Paré(1509 - 1590)

A great French figure of the 16th century, Ambroise Paré is the battlefield surgeon, the father of modern surgery . He is the inventor of many instruments. On the battlefields, he sees atrocious scenes and successfully tries to soften the overly brutal methods of healing which consist, for example, of cauterizing wounds with boiling oil. In 1542, he attended the siege of Perpignan, then occupied by the Spaniards. Paré continues to develop new surgical techniques. Subsequently he became the surgeon of the kings of France (Henri II and his descendants:François II, Charles IX and Henri III). Firm in his Huguenot convictions, on Saint-Barthélemy, he was protected by the Guise family.