Looking at:

Renaissance Surgery

and

Pare’s Work

In a little more detail.

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Renaissance Anatomy and Surgery Timeline

Image courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine

Battlefield Wounds

Evidence Exercise, Recap and Revision

Pain, Infection and Bleeding

Examples of Pare’s ‘other’ work

Please ‘click’ on one of the following buttons

Gunshot wounds

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

2

3

Gunshot wounds

The scale of damage caused by musket balls

entering and exiting the body

(Shattered bone, ripped muscle and tissue, etc)

1

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?

Gunshot wounds

Musket balls carrying infection deep inside the

body. Musket balls dragged dirt, material and

lead with them as they entered the body

The scale of damage caused by musket balls

entering and exiting the body

(Shattered bone, ripped muscle and tissue, etc)

1

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?

Gunshot wounds

Musket balls carrying infection deep inside the

body. Musket balls dragged dirt, material and

lead with them as they entered the body

The scale of damage caused by musket balls

entering and exiting the body

(Shattered bone, ripped muscle and tissue, etc)

New methods of surgery had to be learnt to deal with the new types of

wounds being encountered

1

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?

Using hot oil

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 TurpentinePare 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

INFECTIONBLEEDINGIn 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.

Click on each image for more information

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?

This image courtesy of the Clendening History of Medicine Library,

University of Kansas Medical Centre

Images courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine

Prosthetic limbs like these

were made (or designed) by

Pare in the sixteenth century.

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.

Pare would have worked with armourers to make and develop

these replacement limbs.

You could use the Whiteboard Pen and Highlighter here

Questions

Image courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine

Questions

Next Question

Image courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine

Questions:

1) Note down the objects that have been placed within this picture.

Questions:

1) Note down the objects that have been placed within this picture.

2) Explain the significance of each of these objects in relation to the work of Ambroise Pare.

Saw Gun Books

Trephined Skull Drill

Jars on the shelf

Next Question

Image courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine

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