1649 SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS SYRINGE - Ambroise Paré FOLIO fine handcol woodcut - Medicine

Woodcut leaf: 31.5 x 20 cm; 12.5 x 7.9 inches

ORIGINAL FROM 1649

Hand coloured.

Pare (1517-1590) began working as a battefield surgeon in 1536. When treating gunshot wounds on the battlefield, he often amputated limbs.   Pare treated many amputees during his career. He developed safe and effective methods for amputation, and closely followed the progress of all his patients. He therefore recorded many first-hand accounts of phantom limb syndrome, and, in 1551, provided the first medical description of the condition:   For the patients, long after the amputation is made, say they still feel pain in the amputated part. Of this they complain strongly, a thing worthy of wonder and almost incredible to people who have not experienced this.   

Eventually, Pare began to focus on designing and making artificial limbs. He tried to replicate natural movement in his devices, and the prostheses he developed heralded the modern era of artificial limbs. 

The illustration above comes from Pare’s Oeuvres (Collected Works in English), which was published in 1649:  

The Workes of that Famous Chirurgion Ambrose Parey translated out of the Latine and compared with the French by Tho. Johnson. Printed by Richard Cotes and Willi: Du-gard, and are to be sold by John Clarke, entring into Mercers Chappell, 1649.