The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-12-22
French to Honor Memory
 Of the Father of Surgery

1 This is the 325th anniversary of the death of Ambroise~ Pare. 5 It is no reflection upon the inte11igence- of the average reader to insinuate that he l is probably unfamiliar with that name. Historians have a, way of recording ] the deeds of those who have taken life on a large scale, while almost w11 oily neg1ecting those who have de- voted their energies to saving human life. |
 Ambrofses Pare was one of the great benefactors of history. While the French people claim him as their own, and, even in the midst of war, are planning to celebrate in 1917 the
 400th anniversary of his birth, 7 he belongs to all humanity, and the whole world should join in henering
 his memory.
 Arnbreise Pare was the father of modern surgery He found that sci ence groveHng in the gutter, prac- ticed for the most part by men of no education or special training, and its few textbooks but compendiums of outworn theories and sliny supersti- tions. He gave to modern surgery it's first great impetus, and, with his great Swiss contemporary, Paracelsus rescued the healing arts from the slough of mEdieva1isTn.
 The so-caIled t.Tnifac1es'' of sur gerry performed by Dr. Alexis Carrel and the host of other eminent sur geons on the batt1efelds of Europe would, by comparison, make Fares work seem crude and bung1ing. He was the great pioneer, however, and supplied the initiative for the trenen- dous improvements in surgery which the succeeding centuries held in store for a suffering, pain-racked world
 Tn the ancient pagan world the art of surgery was highly developed, and in many leases was equal to present. day practices. With the downfall of the old civilizations, and the eclipse of science and learning, the healing arts declined. until they were prac- ticed only by charIatans and fanatics. The Arabians preserved the bequest of the ancient world, but for 8 thou sand years no advances were made, In Christian Europe the light of sci. ence was almost extinguished, and it brave friend of mankind held alott a. tiny, fickering torch, which only made the prevailing pail of supersti- ton seem the darker.
 In England, France and Germany, as in all other Christian countries, surgery was practiced principally by barbers. The red and white poles in front of their shops had the sigT1ff-' canoe of white ba.rldages wrapped about bloody wounds. Their minis trations were of the crudest kind, and, as the barbers had no knowledge of @ simplest of operations. The barber surgeons had no professional stand ing with the physicians. Surgery Twas a trade, and humble one.
 Pare was born at Laval in 1517, ana was apprenticed to a. barber in Paris During the campaign of Francis I, in Piedmont he Served as an army sur geon. In that capacity he effected many innovations. Instead of treat ing gunshot wounds with boiling oil, he trusted to a simple bandage. To stop bleeding he tiedS up a severed artery with threads. His asepttc dressing for wounds, although de- nounced by all the auth orities'' of the day, revolutionized surgery. His lfgature for large arteries made arl-' putation on a large scale possible for the first time in history. These and various other developments of ration al surgery he described in books which were translated into German, English and Dutch. Pare was sur geon to four kings of France, and hero to the people, but to the day of his death he was enounced as quack by the great majority of the members of the tradition-bound, su- perstition-ridden medical profession