Ambroise Paré

Ambroise Paré (circa 1510-90), French surgeon, born in Laval, whose great practical skills and humaneness distinguished him from his contemporaries and made him famous throughout Europe. His successes in the French army as a military surgeon won him the post of royal surgeon to King Henry II and Henry's successors Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III. Paré established the use of ligatures for binding arteries to prevent hemorrhage. He did away with the practice of cauterizing wounds with boiling oil, improved the treatment of fractures, and promoted the use of artificial limbs. Because he had no formal education, Paré was the first surgeon to describe his technical work in his native language rather than in Latin; thus, his writings had a wide influence on the public as well as on medical professionals.