Other aspects of Ambroise Paré’s life

Excerpt

His father was, according to some, a cabinet maker, but others, on probably better traditional evidence, state that he was valet de chambre and barber to the Sieur de Laval. Several of his near relatives were in medical occupations. Thus his sister Catherine married Gaspard Martin, a master barber-surgeon of Paris. He died following an amputation of the leg performed upon him by Paré. In a pamphlet written by a surgeon named Comperat, Paré was accused of having been more or less responsible for his brother-in-law’s death, because he had used the method of ligation of the vessels to check the haemorrhage at the operation, instead of cauterising the stump. One brother, Jean, whom Paré greatly praises his skill in detecting the frauds of beggars who shammed diseases and deformities, was a master barber-surgeon at Vitre, and Paré and is supposed to have studied with him at for a time. He had another brother, also named Jean, who was a cabinet maker in Paris. Paré adopted his daughter Jeanne, giving her a handsome dowry when she married Claude Viart, a surgeon of Paris, who had lived 20 years in Paré’s house as his pupil (Figs. 1, 2).

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