Revolution in the Anatomy of Surgery in the 16 th Century: The Undetailed Encounters and Associationbetween Andreas Vesalius and Ambroise Pare

Introduction: By the mid-16th century, a new era of medicine and surgery had begun, driven no less by upheavals in religion, art, and science than the advent of printing. Two notable contributions were the clinical applications of Andreas Vesalius’ anatomy and the surgical innovations of Ambroise Pare. Contemporaries, their intersections, mutual adventures, and conjoint contributions have not been adequately described. They overlapped in education, anatomic study, military experience, consultations to famous figure, and visionary use of anatomical illustrations.
During the mid-1530s Vesalius and Pare both performed dissections at the Paris Faculty of Medicine. Ostensibly in different social spheres, both worked under Jacobus Sylvius, whom they lauded but whose Galenist views they later refuted. At the horrific 1552 battle of Metz, Vesalius (Spain) and Pare (France) were opposing military surgeons. At Hesdin in 1553, Pare surrendered to “the emperor’s [Spain] surgeon” –Vesalius– who bade Pare to demonstrate his surgical techniques. In unusual circumstances, Vesalius also tried recruiting Pare unsuccessfully to change sides. In 1559, Henri II was mortally injured by a lance while jousting. Pare, the royal surgeon, took charge alongside Vesalius, who was summoned from Brussels despite disparaging rumors that he had engaged in human vivisection.
Pare seems not to have known Latin to read Vesalius. Still, Pare comprehended the significance. A remarkable exchange, relationship, and plan must have existed between the two after the encounter over Henri. Vesalius, railing against his work “hideously plagiarized” and “blatherers” in the 1543 Fabrica, permitted Pare to feature his treasured illustrations in Pare’s 1561 Anatomie universelle and 1585 Oeuvres: “figures of Anatomy… from Andre Vesal, a rare man, & the first of his time in this era of Medicine.” Ironically, Pare’s Oeuvres, reprinted through the mid-1800s, perpetuated Vesalian images longer than they might have otherwise survived, thus contributing to their immense applied surgical-anatomic legacy.

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