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. After the usual course of instruction, Pare was admitted a master barber-surgeon, and shortly after was appointed to a charge with the French army under Montmorenci in Piedmont.
Pare was not a man to follow in the ordinary ruts of his profession, but brought the resources of an ardent and original mind to bear upon his daily work, diligently thinking out for himself the RATIONALE of diseases and their befitting remedies.
Before his time the wounded suffered much more at the hands of their surgeons than they did at those of their enemies. To stop bleeding from gunshot wounds, the barbarous expedient was resorted to of dressing them with boiling oil. Haemorrhage was also stopped by searing the wounds with a red-hot iron; and when amputation was necessary, it was performed with a red-hot knife. At first Pare treated wounds according to the approved methods; but, fortunately, on one occasion, running short of boiling oil, he substituted a mild and emollient application. He was in great fear all night lest he should have done wrong in adopting this treatment; but was greatly relieved next morning on finding his patients comparatively comfortable, while those whose wounds had been treated in the usual way were writhing in torment. Such was the casual origin of one of Pare's greatest improvements in the treatment of gun-shot wounds;and he proceeded to adopt the emollient treatment in all future cases. Another still more important improvement was his employment of the ligature in tying arteries to stop haemorrhage, instead of the actual cautery. Pare, however, met with the usual fate of innovators and reformers. His practice was denounced by his surgical brethren as dangerous, unprofessional, and empirical; and the older surgeons banded themselves together to resist its adoption. They reproached him for his want of education, more especially for his ignorance of Latin and Greek; and they assailed him with quotations from ancient writers, which he was unable either to verify or refute. But the best answer to his assailants was the success of his practice. The wounded soldiers called out everywhere for Pare, and he was always at their service: he tended them carefully and affectionately; and he usually took leave of them with the words, "I have dressed you; may God cure you."After three years' active service as army-surgeon, Pare returned to Paris with such a reputation that he was at once appointed surgeon in ordinary to the King. When Metz was besieged by the Spanish army, under Charles V., the garrison suffered heavy loss, and the number of wounded was very great. The surgeons were few and incompetent, and probably slew more by their bad treatment than the Spaniards did by the sword. The Duke of Guise, who commanded the garrison, wrote to the King imploring him to send Pare to his help.
The courageous surgeon at once set out, and, after braving many dangers (to use his own words, "d'estre pendu, estrangle ou mis en pieces"), he succeeded in passing the enemy's lines, and entered Metz in safety. The Duke, the generals, and the captains gave him an affectionate welcome; while the soldiers, when they heard of his arrival, cried, "We no longer fear dying of our wounds; our friend is among us." In the following year Pare was in like manner with the besieged in the town of Hesdin, which shortly fell before the Duke of Savoy, and he was taken prisoner. But having succeeded in curing one of the enemy's chief officers of a serious wound, he was discharged without ransom, and returned in safety to Paris.
The rest of his life was occupied in study, in self-improvement, in piety, and in good deeds. Urged by some of the most learned among his contemporaries, he placed on record the results of his surgical experience, in twenty-eight books, which were published by him at different times. His writings are valuable and remarkable chiefly on account of the great number of facts and cases contained in them, and the care with which he avoids giving any directions resting merely upon theory unsupported by observation. Pare continued, though a Protestant, to hold the office of surgeon in ordinary to the King; and during the Massacre of St. Bartholomew he owed his life to the personal friendship of Charles IX., whom he had on one occasion saved from the dangerous effects of a wound inflicted by a clumsy surgeon in performing the operation of venesection. Brantome, in his 'Memoires,' thus speaks of the King's rescue of Pare on the night of Saint Bartholomew - "He sent to fetch him, and to remain during the night in his chamber and wardrobe-room, commanding him not to stir, and saying that it was not reasonable that a man who had preserved the lives of so many people should himself be massacred." Thus Pare escaped the horrors of that fearful night, which he survived for many years, and was permitted to die in peace, full of age and honours.
