- ciably the warmth of the surrounding air. Next, he gave
orders to rub briskly the back of the patient's neck, as well as the shoulders, the uninjured arm and the legs, with heated cloths which were immediately afterward to be wrapped around him; and then, for an outside covering, he utilized the straw and cows' dung which were plentifully within reach. In addition, two braziers which had been procured from a neighboring dwelling, were charged with coals and kept burning close to him. During three successive days and nights these measures were kept up faithfully, and from time to time a mixture of milk and soft egg was introduced into the patient's mouth through a suitable tube, after the jaws had first been pried open by a bit of willow wood. The effect of these measures was to make the patient perspire copiously and to induce a gentle action of the bowels; and, as a further effect, the trismus was also overcome. For some time afterward, in addition to the ordinary dressing of the healing wounds, it was thought best to apply the red-hot cautery regularly at certain intervals to the end of the bone of the upper arm. (This practice was abandoned by Paré at a later date.) Final and perfect healing took place after several large splinters of bone had been exfoliated.
At the end of his account of what one is tempted to call the wonderful victory of a surgeon over the death that threatened to carry off this gravely wounded soldier, Paré adds one of his characteristic appeals to the oncoming younger generation of physicians:—
Both God and Nature constantly remind the surgeon that, no
matter how poor, in a given case, the prospect of a cure may seem,
he should not for one moment cease doing his full duty; for Nature
often accomplishes what the surgeon believes to be impossible.
Cornelius Celsus [about the time of Jesus Christ] says: "Contingunt
in morbis monstra, sicut et in natura." [Marvels are observed
in diseases, very much in the same manner as they are frequently
encountered in nature.]
In the two preceding histories of actual cases treated,—one
of these patients being a wealthy officer of high rank
and birth, and the other a common soldier of the peasant
