Journeys in Diverse Places

2 ideas

1. Running out of boiling oil, 1537

   At the siege of Turin in 1537, the young army surgeon Paré was following Giovanni da Vigo's doctrine that gunshot wounds were poisoned by gunpowder and had to be cauterised with boiling oil of elder. When his oil ran out, he dressed the remaining men with a cool mix of egg yolk, oil of roses and turpentine, then lay awake expecting them to die. At dawn the oil-burned soldiers were feverish, swollen and in great pain, while the others had slept and their wounds were calm, so he resolved never again to burn gunshot wounds.

2. I dressed him, God healed him

   Paré's refrain, "je le pansai, Dieu le guarit," treats the body as the agent of healing and the surgeon as someone who clears obstacles and supports that process. Seen this way, aggressive intervention becomes suspect because it can harm the tissue it claims to protect. The healer's job becomes gentle dressing, drainage and restraint rather than dramatic action.

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