jan 1, 1575 - Ambroise Pare: Advances in Surgery

Description:

Army surgeon Ambroise Pare specialised in surgery, spending 20 years treating sword and gunshot wounds. Pare discovered that wounds healed more quickly and less painfully if boiling oil or red hot irons were not used for cauterisation; instead, he used ligatures to tie the veins and arteries in order to prevent bleeding. However, this was not used extensively as the process of tying all the ligatures was lengthy, meaning patients were at risk of bleeding to death, and the threads often spread infection.
Pare also developed a soothing ointment to treat wounds after he had run out of boiling oil, finding that it healed the wound with little pain and no inflammation. These findings were published in his book the Works of Surgery in 1575, which including writings of his ideas about surgery and dissection and drawings of artificial limbs.

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