The Apologie and Treatise of Ambroise Pare

Abstract

I first read this brilliant translation in its year of publication, 1951. I had just passed my FRCS examination and was completing my two years of national service. I was enthralled. I have dipped into its pages many times over the years, and I have learnt much from my surgical hero. Ambroise Pare (1510-90) trained as a barber surgeon and spent three or four years as a resident surgeon in that great repository of pathology, the Hotel-Dieu, in Paris. At the age of 26 he began his career in military surgery as a surgeon to the mareschal de Montejan, commander of the French infantry in the campaign in Turin. This slim …