Produced by David Turner, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
The Harvard Classics Volume 38
Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology)
CONTENTS
THE OATH OF HIPPOCRATES
THE LAW OF HIPPOCRATES
JOURNEYS IN DIVERSE PLACES ... AMBROISE PARE
TRANSLATED BY STEPHEN PAGET
ON THE MOTION OF THE HEART AND BLOOD IN ANIMALS
WILLIAM HARVEY. . . TRANSLATED BY ROBERT WILLIS
THE THREE ORIGINAL PUBLICATIONS ON VACCINATION
AGAINST SMALLPOX . ... .. EDWARD JENNER
THE CONTAGIOUSNESS OF PUERPERAL FEVER
O. W. HOLMES
ON THE ANTISEPTIC PRINCIPLE OF THE PRACTICE OF SURGERY
LORD LISTER
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY OF FERMENTATION
LOUIS PASTEUR
TRANSLATED BY F. FAULKNER AND D. C. ROBB (Revised)
THE GERM THEORY AND ITS APPLICATIONS TO MEDICINE AND
SURGERY (Revised) . ... .. LOUIS PASTEUR
TRANSLATED BY H. C. ERNST
ON THE EXTENSION OF THE GERM THEORY TO THE ETIOLOGY
OF CERTAIN COMMON DISEASES (Revised) LOUIS PASTEUR
TRANSLATED BY H. C. ERNST
PREJUDICES WHICH HAVE RETARDED THE PROGRESS OF
GEOLOGY. ... . ... .. SIR CHARLES LYELL
UNIFORMITY IN THE SERIES OF PAST CHANGES IN THE
ANIMATE AND INANIMATE WORLD SIR CHARLES LYELL
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Hippocrates, the celebrated Greek physician, was a contemporary
of the historian Herodotus. He was born in the island of Cos
between 470 and 460 B. C., and belonged to the family that
claimed descent from the mythical AEsculapius, son of Apollo.
There was already a long medical tradition in Greece before his
day, and this he is supposed to have inherited chiefly through
his predecessor Herodicus; and he enlarged his education by
extensive travel. He is said, though the evidence is
unsatisfactory, to have taken part in the efforts to check the
great plague which devastated Athens at the beginning of the
Peloponnesian war. He died at Larissa between 380 and 360 B. C.
The works attributed to Hippocrates are the earliest extant Greek
medical writings, but very many of them are certainly not his.
Some five or six, however, are generally granted to be genuine,
and among these is the famous "Oath." This interesting document
shows that in his time physicians were already organized into a
corporation or guild, with regulations for the training of
disciples, and with an esprit de corps and a professional ideal
which, with slight exceptions, can hardly yet be regarded as out
of date.
One saying occurring in the words of Hippocrates has achieved
universal currency, though few who quote it to-day are aware that
it originally referred to the art of the physician. It is the
first of his "Aphorisms": "Life is short, and the Art long; the
occasion fleeting; experience fallacious, and judgment difficult.
The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right
himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and
externals cooperate."
THE OATH OF HIPPOCRATES
I swear by Apollo the physician and AEsculapius, and Health, and
All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my
ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation
--to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my
parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his
necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same
footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they
shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by
precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will
impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my
teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath
according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will
follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and
judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain
from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no
deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such
counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary
to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my
life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons labouring under
the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are
practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will
go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from
every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further,
from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves.
Whatever, in connection with my professional practice, or not in
connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which
ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as
reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue
to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy
life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all
times. But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the
reverse be my lot.
THE LAW OF HIPPOCRATES
Medicine is of all the arts the most noble; but, owing to the
ignorance of those who practice it, and of those who,
inconsiderately, form a judgment of them, it is at present far
behind all the other arts. Their mistake appears to me to arise
principally from this, that in the cities there is no punishment
connected with the practice of medicine (and with it alone)
except disgrace, and that does not hurt those who are familiar
with it. Such persons are like the figures which are introduced
in tragedies, for as they have the shape, and dress, and personal
appearance of an actor, but are not actors, so also physicians
are many in title but very few in reality.
2. Whoever is to acquire a competent knowledge of medicine, ought
to be possessed of the following advantages: a natural
disposition; instruction; a favorable position for the study;
early tuition; love of labour; leisure. First of all, a natural
talent is required; for, when Nature leads the way to what is
most excellent, instruction in the art takes place, which the
student must try to appropriate to himself by reflection,
becoming an early pupil in a place well adapted for instruction.
He must also bring to the task a love of labour and perseverance,
so that the instruction taking root may bring forth proper and
abundant fruits.
3. Instruction in medicine is like the culture of the productions
of the earth. For our natural disposition, is, as it were, the
soil; the tenets of our teacher are, as it were, the seed;
instruction in youth is like the planting of the seed in the
ground at the proper season; the place where the instruction is
communicated is like the food imparted to vegetables by the
atmosphere; diligent study is like the cultivation of the fields;
and it is time which imparts strength to all things and brings
them to maturity.
4. Having brought all these requisites to the study of medicine,
and having acquired a true knowledge of it, we shall thus, in
travelling through the cities, be esteemed physicians not only in
name but in reality. But inexperience is a bad treasure, and a
bad fund to those who possess it, whether in opinion or reality,
being devoid of self-reliance and contentedness, and the nurse
both of timidity and audacity. For timidity betrays a want of
powers, and audacity a lack of skill. They are, indeed, two
things, knowledge and opinion, of which the one makes its
possessor really to know, the other to be ignorant.
5. Those things which are sacred, are to be imparted only to
sacred persons; and it is not lawful to impart them to the
profane until they have been initiated in the mysteries of the
science.
JOURNEYS IN DIVERSE PLACES
BY AMBROISE PARE
TRANSLATED BY STEPHEN PAGET
Ambroise Pare was born in the village of Bourg-Hersent, near
Laval, in Maine, France, about 1510. He was trained as a barber-
surgeon at a time when a barber-surgeon was inferior to a surgeon
and the professions of surgeon and physician were kept apart by
the law of the Church that forbade a physician to shed blood.
Under whom he served his apprenticeship is unknown, but by 1533
he was in Paris, where he received an appointment as house
surgeon at the Hotel Dieu. After three or four years of valuable
experience in this hospital, he set up in private practise in
Paris, but for the next thirty years he was there only in the
intervals of peace; the rest of the time he followed the army. He
became a master barber-surgeon in 1541.
In Pare's time the armies of Europe were not regularly equipped
with a medical service. The great nobles were accompanied by
their private physicians; the common soldiers doctored
themselves, or used the services of barber-surgeons and quacks
who accompanied the army as adventurers. "When Pare joined the
army" says Paget, "he went simply as a follower of Colonel
Montejan, having neither rank, recognition, nor regular payment.
His fees make up in romance for their irregularity: a cask of
wine, fifty double ducats and a horse, a diamond, a collection of
crowns and half-crowns from the ranks, other honorable presents
and of great value'; from the King himself, three hundred crowns,
and a promise he would never let him be in want; another diamond,
this time from the finger of a duchess: and a soldier once
offered a bag of gold to him."
When Pare was a man of seventy, the Dean of the Faculty of
Medicine in Paris made an attack on him on account of his use of
the ligature instead of cauterizing after amputation. In answer,
Pare appealed to his successful experience, and narrated the
"Journeys in Diverse Places" here printed. This entertaining
volume gives a vivid picture, not merely of the condition of
surgery in the sixteenth century, but of the military life of the
time; and reveals incidentally a personality of remarkable vigor
and charm. Pare's own achievements are recorded with modest
satisfaction: "I dressed him, and God healed him," is the
refrain. Pare died in Paris in December, 1590.
JOURNEYS IN DIVERSE PLACES
[Footnote: The present translation is taken from Mr. Stephen
Paget's "Ambroise Pare and His Times" by arrangement with Messrs.
G. P. Putnam's Sons.]
1537-1569
THE JOURNEY TO TURIN. 1537
I will here shew my readers the towns and places where I found a
way to learn the art of surgery: for the better instruction of
the young surgeon.
And first, in the year 1536, the great King Francis sent a large
army to Turin, to recover the towns and castles that had been
taken by the Marquis du Guast, Lieutenant-General of the Emperor.
M. the Constable, then Grand Master, was Lieutenant-General of
the army, and M. de Montejan was Colonel-General of the infantry,
whose surgeon I was at this time. A great part of the army being
come to the Pass of Suze, we found the enemy occupying it; and
they had made forts and trenches, so that we had to fight to
dislodge them and drive them out. And there were many killed and
wounded on both sides,--but the enemy were forced to give way and
retreat into the castle, which was captured, part of it, by
Captain Le Rat, who was posted on a little hill with some of his
soldiers, whence they fired straight on the enemy. He received an
arquebus-shot in his right ankle, and fell to the ground at once,
and then said, "Now they have got the Rat." I dressed him, and
God healed him.
We entered pell-mell into the city, and passed over the dead
bodies, and some not yet dead, hearing them cry under our horses'
feet; and they made my heart ache to hear them. And truly I
repented I had left Paris to see such a pitiful spectacle. Being
come into the city, I entered into a stable, thinking to lodge my
own and my man's horse, and found four dead soldiers, and three
propped against the wall, their features all changed, and they
neither saw, heard, nor spake, and their clothes were still
smouldering where the gunpowder had burned them. As I was looking
at them with pity, there came an old soldier who asked me if
there were any way to cure them; I said no. And then he went up
to them and cut their throats, gently, and without ill will
toward them. Seeing this great cruelty, I told him he was a
villain: he answered he prayed God, when he should be in such a
plight, he might find someone to do the same for him; that he
should not linger in misery.
To come back to my story, the enemy were called on to surrender,
which they did, and left the city with only their lives saved,
and the white stick in their hands; and most of them went off to
the Chateau de Villane, where about two hundred Spaniards were
stationed. M. the Constable would not leave these behind him,
wishing to clear the road for our own men. The castle is seated
on a small hill; which gave great confidence to those within,
that we could not bring our artillery to bear upon them. They
were summoned to surrender, or they would be cut in pieces: they
answered that they would not, saying they were as good and
faithful servants of the Emperor, as M. the Constable could be of
the King his master. Thereupon our men by night hoisted up two
great cannons, with the help of the Swiss soldiers and the
lansquenets; but as ill luck would have it, when the cannons were
in position, a gunner stupidly set fire to a bag full of
gunpowder, whereby he was burned, with ten or twelve soldiers;
and the flame of the powder discovered our artillery, so that all
night long those within the castle fired their arquebuses at the
place where they had caught sight of the cannons, and many of our
men were killed and wounded. Next day, early in the morning, the
attack was begun, and we soon made a breach in their wall. Then
they demanded a parley; but it was too late, for meanwhile our
French infantry, seeing them taken by surprise, mounted the
breach, and cut them all in pieces, save one very fair young girl
of Piedmont, whom a great seigneur would have. ... The captain
and the ensign were taken alive, but soon afterward hanged and
strangled on the battlements of the gate of the city, to give
example and fear to the Emperor's soldiers, not to be so rash and
mad as to wish to hold such places against so great an army.
The soldiers within the castle, seeing our men come on them with
great fury, did all they could to defend themselves, and killed
and wounded many of our soldiers with pikes, arquebuses, and
stones, whereby the surgeons had all their work cut out for them.
Now I was at this time a fresh-water soldier; I had not yet seen
wounds made by gunshot at the first dressing. It is true I had
read in John de Vigo, first book, Of Wounds in General, eighth
chapter, that wounds made by firearms partake of venenosity, by
reason of the powder; and for their cure he bids you cauterise
them with oil of elders scalding hot, mixed with a little
treacle. And to make no mistake, before I would use the said oil,
knowing this was to bring great pain to the patient, I asked
first before I applied it, what the other surgeons did for the
first dressing; which was to put the said oil, boiling well, into
the wounds, with tents and setons; wherefore I took courage to do
as they did. At last my oil ran short, and I was forced instead
thereof to apply a digestive made of the yolks of eggs, oil of
roses, and turpentine. In the night I could not sleep in quiet,
fearing some default in not cauterising, that I should find the
wounded to whom I had not used the said oil dead from the poison
of their wounds; which made me rise very early to visit them,
where beyond my expectation I found that those to whom I had
applied my digestive medicament had but little pain, and their
wounds without inflammation or swelling, having rested fairly
well that night; the others, to whom the boiling oil was used, I
found feverish, with great pain and swelling about the edges of
their wounds. Then I resolved never more to burn thus cruelly
poor men with gunshot wounds.
While I was at Turin, I found a surgeon famed above all others
for his treatment of gunshot wounds; into whose favour I found
means to insinuate myself, to have the recipe of his balm, as he
called it, wherewith he dressed gunshot wounds. And he made me
pay my court to him for two years, before I could possibly draw
the recipe from him. In the end, thanks to my gifts and presents,
he gave it to me; which was to boil, in oil of lilies, young
whelps just born, and earth-worms prepared with Venetian
turpentine. Then I was joyful, and my heart made glad, that I had
understood his remedy, which was like that which I had obtained
by chance.
See how I learned to treat gunshot wounds; not by books.
My Lord Marshal Montejan remained Lieutenant-General for the King
in Piedmont, having ten or twelve thousand men in garrison in the
different cities and castles, who were often fighting among
themselves with swords and other weapons, even with arquebuses.
And if there were four wounded, I always had three of them; and
if there were question of cutting off an arm or a leg, or of
trepanning, or of reducing a fracture or a dislocation, I
accomplished it all. The Lord Marshal sent me now hire now there
to dress the soldiers committed to me who were wounded in other
cities beside Turin, so that I was always in the country, one way
or the other.
M. the Marshal sent to Milan, to a physician of no less
reputation than the late M. le Grand for his success in practice,
to treat him for an hepatic flux, whereof in the end he died.
This physician was some while at Turin to treat him, and was
often called to visit the wounded, where always he found me; and
I was used to consult with him, and with some other surgeons; and
when we had resolved to do any serious work of surgery, it was
Ambroise Pare that put his hand thereto, which I would do
promptly and skilfully, and with great assurance, insomuch that
the physician wondered at me, to be so ready in the operations of
surgery, and I so young. One day, discoursing with the Lord
Marshal, he said to him:
"Signor, tu hai un Chirurgico giovane di anni, ma egli e vecchio
di sapere e di esperientia: Guardato bene, perche egli ti fara
servicio et honore." That is to say, "Thou hast a surgeon young
in age, but he is old in knowledge and experience: take good
care, of him, for he will do thee service and honour." But the
good man did not know I had lived three years at the Hotel Dieu
in Paris, with the patients there.
In the end, M. the Marshal died of his hepatic flux. He being
dead, the King sent M. the Marshal d'Annebaut to be in his place:
who did me the honour to ask me to live with him, and he would
treat me as well or better than M. the Marshal de Montejan. Which
I would not do, for grief at the loss of my master, who loved me
dearly; so I returned to Paris.
THE JOURNEY TO MAROLLE AND LOW BRITTANY. 1543
I went to the Camp of Marolle, with the late M. de Rohan, as
surgeon of his company; where was the King himself. M.
d'Estampes, Governor of Brittany, had told the King how the
English had hoist sail to land in Low Brittany; and had prayed
him to send, to help him, MM. de Rohan and de Laval, because they
were the seigneurs of that country, and by their help the country
people would beat back the enemy, and keep them from landing.
Having heard this, the King sent these seigneurs to go in haste
to the help of their country; and to each was given as much power
as to the Governor, so that they were all three the King's
Lieutenants. They willingly took this charge upon them, and went
off posting with good speed, and took me with them as far as
Landreneau. There we found every one in arms, the tocsin sounding
on every side, for a good five or six leagues round the harbours,
Brent, Couquet, Crozon, le Fou, Doulac, Laudanec; each well
furnished with artillery, as cannons, demi-cannons, culverins,
muskets, falcons, arquebuses; in brief, all who came together
were well equipped with all sorts and kinds of artillery, and
with many soldiers, both Breton and French, to hinder the English
from landing as they had resolved at their parting from England.
The enemy's army came right under our cannons: and when we
perceived them desiring to land, we saluted them with cannon-
shot, and unmasked our forces and our artillery. They fled to sea
again. I was right glad to see their ships set sail, which were
in good number and good order, and seemed to be a forest moving
upon the sea. I saw a thing also whereat I marvelled much, which
was, that the balls of the great cannons made long rebounds, and
grazed over the water as they do over the earth. Now to make the
matter short, our English did us no harm, and returned safe and
sound into England. And they leaving us in peace, we stayed in
that country in garrison until we were assured that their army
was dispersed.
Now our soldiers used often to exercise themselves with running
at the ring, or with fencing, so that there was always some one
in trouble, and I had always something to employ me. M.
d'Estampes, to make pastime and pleasure for the Seigneurs de
Rohan and de Laval, and other gentlemen, got a number of village
girls to come to the sports, to sing songs in the tongue of Low
Brittany: wherein their harmony was like the croaking of frogs
when they are in love. Moreover, he made them dance the Brittany
triori, without moving feet or hips: he made the gentlemen see
and hear many good things.
At other tunes they made the wrestlers of the towns and Villages
come, where there was a prize for the best: and the sport was not
ended but that one or other had a leg or arm broken, or the
shoulder or hip dislocated.
There was a little man of Low Brittany, of a square body and well
set, who long held the credit of the field, and by his skill and
strength threw five or six to the ground. There came against him
a big man, one Dativo, a pedagogue, who was said to be one of the
best wrestlers in all Brittany: he entered into the lists, having
thrown off his long jacket, in hose and doublet: when he was near
the little man, it looked as though the little man had been tied
to his girdle. Nevertheless, when they gripped each other round
the neck, they were a long time without doing anything, and we
thought they would remain equal in force and skill: but the
little man suddenly leaped beneath this big Dativo, and took him
on his shoulder, and threw him to earth on his back all spread
out like a frog; and all the company laughed at the skill and
strength of the little fellow. The great Dativo was furious to
have been thus thrown to earth by so small a man: he rose again
in a rage, and would have his revenge. They took hold again round
the neck, and were again a good while at their hold without
falling to the ground: but at last the big man let himself fall
upon the little, and in falling put his elbow upon the pit of his
stomach, and burst his heart, and killed him stark dead. And
knowing he had given him his death's blow, took again his long
cassock, and went away with his tail between his legs, and
eclipsed himself. Seeing the little man came not again to
himself, either for wine, vinegar, or any other thing presented
to him, I drew near to him and felt his pulse, which did not beat
at all: then I said he was dead. Then the Bretons, who were
assisting at the wrestling, said aloud in their jargon, "Andraze
meuraquet enes rac un bloa so abeuduex henelep e barz an gouremon
enel ma hoa engoustun." That is to say, "That is not in the
sport." And someone said that this great Dativo was accustomed to
do so, and but a year past he had done the same at a wrestling. I
must needs open the body to know the cause of this sudden death.
I found much blood in the thorax. ... I tried to find some
internal opening whence it might have come, which I could not,
for all the diligence that I could use. ... The poor little
wrestler was buried. I took leave of MM. de Rohan, de Laval, and
d'Estampes. M. de Rohan made me a present of fifty double ducats
and a horse, M. de Laval gave me a nag for my man, and M.
d'Estampes gave me a diamond worth thirty crowns: and I returned
to my house in Paris.
THE JOURNEY TO PERPIGNAN. 1543
Some while after, M. de Rohan took me with him posting to the
camp at Perpignan. While we were there, the enemy sallied out,
and surrounded three pieces of our artillery before they were
beaten back to the gates of the city. Which was not done without
many killed and wounded, among the others M. de Brissac, who was
then grand master of the artillery, with an arquebus-shot in the
shoulder. When he retired to his tent, all the wounded followed
him, hoping to be dressed by the surgeons who were to dress him.
Being come to his tent and laid on his bed, the bullet was
searched for by three or four of the best surgeons in the army,
who could not find it, but said it had entered into his body.
At last he called for me, to see if I could be more skilful than
they, because he had known me in Piedmont. Then I made him rise
from his bed, and told him to put himself in the same posture
that he had when he was wounded, which he did, taking a javelin
in his hand just as he had held his pike to fight. I put my hand
around the wound, and found the bullet. ... Having found it, I
showed them the place where it was, and it was taken out by M.
Nicole Lavernot, surgeon of M. the Dauphin, who was the King's
Lieutenant in that army; all the same, the honour of finding it
belonged to me.
I saw one very strange thing, which was this: a soldier in my
presence gave one of his fellows a blow on the head with a
halbard, penetrating to the left ventricle of the brain; yet the
man did not fall to the ground. He that struck him said he heard
that he had cheated at dice, and he had drawn a large sum of
money from him, and was accustomed to cheat. They called me to
dress him; which I did, as it were for the last time, knowing
that he would die soon. When I had dressed him, he returned all
alone to his quarters, which were at the least two hundred paces
away. I bade one of his companions send for a priest to dispose
the affairs of his soul; he got one for him, who stayed with him
to his last breath. The next day, the patient sent for me by his
girl, dressed in boy's apparel, to come and dress him; which I
would not, fearing he would die under my hands; and to be rid of
the matter I told her the dressing must not be removed before the
third day. But in truth he was sure to die, though he were never
touched again. The third day, he came staggering to find me in my
tent, and the girl with him, and prayed me most affectionately to
dress him, and showed me a purse wherein might be an hundred or
sixscore pieces of gold, and said he would give me my heart's
desire; nevertheless, for all that, I put off the removal of the
dressing, fearing lest he should die then and there. Certain
gentlemen desired me to go and dress him; which I did at their
request; but in dressing him he died under my hands in a
convulsion. The priest stayed with him till death, and seized his
purse, for fear another man should take it, saying he would say
masses for his poor soul. Also he took his clothes, and
everything else.
I have told this case for the wonder of it, that the soldier,
having received this great blow, did not fall down, and kept his
reason to the end.
Not long afterward, the camp was broken up from diverse causes:
one, because we were told that four companies of Spaniards were
entered into Perpignan: the other, that the plague was spreading
through the camp. Moreover, the country folk warned us there
would soon be a great overflowing of the sea, which might drown
us all. And the presage which they had, was a very great wind
from sea, which rose so high that there remained not a single
tent but was broken and thrown down, for all the care and
diligence we could give; and the kitchens being all uncovered,
the wind raised the dust and sand, which salted and powdered our
meats in such fashion that we could not eat them; and we had to
cook them in pots and other covered vessels. Nor was the camp so
quickly moved but that many carts and carters, mules and mule
drivers, were drowned in the sea, with great loss of baggage.
When the camp was moved I returned to Paris.
THE JOURNEY TO LANDRESY. 1544
The King raised a great army to victual Landresy. Against him the
Emperor had no fewer men, but many more, to wit, eighteen
thousand Germans, ten thousand Spaniards, six thousand Walloons,
ten thousand English, and from thirteen to fourteen thousand
horse. I saw the two armies near each other, within cannon-shot;
and we thought they could not withdraw without giving battle.
There were some foolish gentlemen who must needs approach the
enemy's camp; the enemy fired on them with light field pieces;
some died then and there, others had their arms or legs carried
away. The King having done what he wished, which was to victual
Landresy, withdrew his army to Guise, which was the day after All
Saints, 1544; and from there I returned to Paris.
A little while after, we went to Boulogne; where the English,
seeing our army, left the forts which they were holding,
Moulanabert, le petit Paradis, Monplaisir, the fort of
Chastillon, le Portet, the fort of Dardelot. One day, as I was
going through the camp to dress my wounded men, the enemy who
were in the Tour d' Ordre fired a cannon against us, thinking to
kill two men-at-arms who had stopped to talk together. It
happened that the ball passed quite close to one of them, which
threw him to the ground, and it was thought the ball had touched
him, which it did not; but only the wind of the ball full against
his corselet, with such force that all the outer part of his
thigh became livid and black, and he could hardly stand. I
dressed him, and made diverse scarifications to let out the
bruised blood made by the wind of the ball; and by the rebounds
that it made on the ground it killed four soldiers, who remained
dead where they fell.
I was not far from this shot, so that I could just feel the moved
air, without its doing me any harm save a fright, which made me
duck my head low enough; but the ball was already far away. The
soldiers laughed at me, to be afraid of a ball which had already
passed. Mon petit maistre, I think if you had been there, I
should not have been afraid all alone, and you would have had
your share of it.
Monseigneur the Due de Guise, Francois de Lorraine, was wounded
before Boulogne with a thrust of a lance, which entered above the
right eye, toward the nose, and passed out on the other side
between the ear and the back of the neck, with so great violence
that the head of the lance, with a piece of the wood, was broken
and remained fast; so that it could not be drawn but save with
extreme force, with smith's pincers. Yet notwithstanding the
great violence of the blow, which was not without fracture of
bones, nerves, veins, and arteries, and other parts torn and
broken, my lord, by the grace of God, was healed. He was used to
go into battle always with his vizard raised: that is why the
lance passed right out on the other side.
THE JOURNEY TO GERMANY. 1552
I went to Germany, in the year 1552, with M. de Rohan, captain of
fifty men-at-arms, where I was surgeon of his company, as I have
said before. On this expedition, M. the Constable was general of
the army; M. de Chastillon, afterward the Admiral, was chief
colonel of the infantry, with four regiments of lansquenets under
Captains Recrod and Ringrave, two under each; and every regiment
was of ten ensigns, and every ensign of five hundred men. And
beside these were Captain Chartel, who led the troops that the
Protestant princes had sent to the King (this infantry was very
fine, and was accompanied by fifteen hundred men-at-arms, with a
following of two archers apiece, which would make four thousand
five hundred horse); and two thousand light horse, and as many
mounted arquebusiers, of whom M. d'Aumalle was general; and a
great number of the nobility, who were come there for their
pleasure. Moreover, the King was accompanied by two hundred
gentlemen of his household, under the command of the Seigneurs de
Boisy and de Canappe, and by many other princes. For his
following, to escort him, there were the French and Scotch and
Swiss guards, amounting to six hundred foot soldiers; and the
companies of MM. the Dauphin, de 'Guise, d'Aumalle, and Marshal
Saint Andre, amounting to four hundred lances; which was a
marvellous thing, to see such a multitude; and with this equipage
the King entered into Toul and Metz.
I must not omit to say that the companies of MM. de Rohan, the
Comte de Sancerre, and de Jarnac, which were each of them of
fifty horse, went upon the wings of the camp. And God knows how
scarce we were of victuals, and I protest before Him that at
three diverse times I thought to die of hunger; and it was not
for want of money, for I had enough of it; but we could not get
victuals save by force, because the country people collected them
all into the towns and castles.
One of the servants of the captain-ensign of the company of M. de
Rohan went with others to enter a church where the peasants were
retreated, thinking to get victuals by love or by forces; but he
got the worst of it, as they all did, and came back with seven
sword wounds on the head, the least of which penetrated to the
inner table of the skull; and he had four other wounds upon the
arms, and one on the right shoulder, which cut more than half of
the bladebone. He was brought back to his master's lodging, who
seeing him so mutilated, and not hoping he could be cured, made
him a grave, and would have cast him therein, saying that else
the peasants would massacre and kill him: I in pity told him the
man might still be cured if he were well dressed. Diverse
gentlemen of the company prayed he would take him along with the
baggage, since I was willing to dress him; to which he agreed,
and after I had got the man ready, he was put in a cart, on a bed
well covered and well arranged, drawn by a horse. I did him the
office of physician, apothecary, surgeon, and cook. I dressed him
to the end of his case, and God healed him; insomuch that all the
three companies marvelled at this cure; The men-at-arms of the
company of M. de Rohan, the first muster that was made, gave me
each a crown, and the archers half a crown,
THE JOURNEY TO DANVILLIERS. 1552
On his return from the expedition against the German camp, King
Henry besieged Danvilliers, and those within would not surrender.
They got the worst of it, but our powder failed us; so they had a
good shot at our men. There was a culverin-shot passed through
the tent of H. de Rohan, which hit a gentleman leg who was of his
household. I had to finish the cutting off of it, which I did
without applying the hot irons.
The King sent for powder to Sedan, and when it came we began the
attack mere vigorously than before, so that a breach was made.
MM. de Guise and the Constable, being in the King's chamber, told
him, and they agreed that next day they would assault the town,
and were confident they would enter into it; and it must be kept
secret, for fear the enemy should come to hear of it; and each
promised not to speak of it to any man. Now there was a groom of
the King's chamber, who being laid under the King's camp-bed to
sleep, heard they were resolved to attack the town next day. So
he told the secret to a certain captain, saying that they would
make the attack next day for certain, and he had heard it from
the King, and prayed the said captain to speak of it to no man,
which he promised; but his promise did not hold, and forthwith he
disclosed it to a captain, and this captain to a captain, and the
captains to some of the soldiers, saying always, "Say nothing."
And it was just so much hid, that next day early in the morning
there was seen the greater part of the soldiers with their boots
and breeches cut loose at the knee for the better mounting of the
breach. The King was told of this rumour that ran through the
camp, that the attack was to be made; whereat he was astonished,
seeing there were but three in that advice, who had promised each
other to tell it to no man. The King sent for M. de Guise, to
know if he had spoken of this attack; he swore and affirmed to
him he had not told it to anybody; and M. the Constable said the
same, and told the King they must know for certain who had
declared this secret counsel, seeing they were but three. Inquiry
was made from captain to captain. In the end they found the
truth; for one said, "It was such an one told me," and another
said the same, till it came to the first of all, who declared he
had heard it from the groom of the King's chamber, called Guyard,
a native of Blois, son of a barber of the late King Francis. The
King sent for him into his tent, in the presence of MM. de Guise
and the Constable, to hear from him whence he had his knowledge,
and who had told him the attack was to be made; and said if he
did not speak the truth he would have him hanged. Then he
declared he lay down under the King's bed thinking to sleep, and
so having heard the plan he revealed it to a captain who was a
friend of his, to the end he might prepare himself with his
soldiers to be the first at the attack. Then the King knew the
truth, and told him he should never serve him again, and that he
deserved to be hanged, and forbade him ever to come again to the
Court.
The groom of the chamber went away with this to swallow, and
slept that night with a surgeon-in-ordinary of the King, Master
Louis of Saint Andre; and in the night he gave himself six stabs
with a knife, and cut his throat Nor did the surgeon perceive it
till the morning, when he found his bed all bloody, and the dead
body by him. He marvelled at this sight on his awaking, and
feared they would say he was the cause of the murder; but he was
soon relieved, seeing the reason, which was despair at the loss
of the good friendship of the King.
So Guyard was buried. And those of Danvilliers, when they saw the
breach large enough for us to enter, and our soldiers ready to
assault them, surrendered themselves to the mercy of the King.
Their leaders were taken prisoners, and their Soldiers were sent
away without arms.
The camp being dispersed, I returned to Paris with my gentleman
whose leg I had cut off; I dressed him, and God healed him. I
sent him to his house merry with a wooden leg; and he was content
saying he had got off cheap, not to have been miserably burned to
stop the blood, as you write in your book, won petit matetre,
THE JOURNEY TO CHATEAU LE COMTE. 1552
Some time after. King Henry raised an army of thirty thousand
men, to go and lay waste the country about Hesdin. The King of
Navarre, who was then called M. de Vendosme, was chief of the
army, and the King's Lieutenant. Being at St. Denis, in France,
waiting while the companies passed by, he sent to Paris for me to
speak with him. When I came he begged me (and his request was a
command) to follow him on this journey; and I, wishing to make my
excuses, saying my wife was sick in bed, he made answer there
were physicians in Pairs to cure her, and he, too, had left his
wife, who was of as good a house as mine, and he said he would
use me well, and forthwith ordered I should be attached to his
household. Seeing this great desire he had to take me with him, I
dared not refuse him.
I went after him to Chateau le Comte, within three or four
leagues of Hesdin. The Emperor's soldiers were in garrison there,
with a number of peasants from the country road. M. de Vendosme
called on them to surrender; they made answer that he should
never take them, unless it were piecemeal; let him do his worst,
and they would do their best to defend themselves. They trusted
in their moats, which were full of water; but in two hours, with
plenty of faggots and casks, we made a way for our infantry to
pass over, when they had to advance to the assault; and the place
was attacked with five cannons, and a breach was made large
enough for our men to enter; where those within received the
attack very valiantly, and killed and wounded a great number of
our men with arquebuses, pikes, and stones. In the end, when they
saw themselves overpowered, they set fire to their powder and
ammunition, whereby many of our men were burned, and some of
their own. And they were almost all put to the sword; but some of
our soldiers had taken twenty or thirty, hoping to have ransom
for them: and so soon as this was known, orders were given to
proclaim by trumpet through the camp, that all soldiers who had
Spaniards for prisoners must kill them, on pain of being
themselves hanged and strangled: which was done in cold blood.
Thence we went and burned several villages; and the barns were
all full of grain, to my very great regret. We came as far as
Tournahan, where there was a large tower, whither the enemy
withdrew, but we found the place empty: our men sacked it, and
blew up the tower with a mine of gunpowder, which turned it
upside down. After that, the camp was dispersed, and I returned
to Paris. And the day after Chateau le Comte was taken, M. de
Vendosme sent a gentleman under orders to the King, to report to
him all that had happened, and among other things he told the
King I had done very good work dressing the wounded, and had
showed him eighteen bullets that I had taken out of their bodies,
and there were many more that I had not been able to find or take
out; and he spoke more good of me than there was by half. Then
the King said he would take me into his service, and commanded M.
de Goguier, his first physician, to write me down in the King's
service as one of his surgeons-in-ordinary, and I was to meet him
at Rheims within ten or twelve days: which I did. And the King
did me the honour to command me to live near him, and he would be
a good friend to me. Then I thanked him most humbly for the
honour he was pleased to do me, in appointing me to serve him.
THE JOURNEY TO METZ. 1552
The Emperor having besieged Metz with more than an hundred and
twenty thousand men, and in the hardest time of winter,--it is
still fresh in the minds of all--and there were five or six
thousand men in the town, and among them seven princes; MM. le
Duc de Guise, the King's Lieutenant, d'Enghien, de Conde, de la
Montpensier, de la Roche-sur-Yon, de Nemours, and many other
gentlemen, with a number of veteran captains and officers: who
often sallied out against the enemy (as I shall tell hereafter),
not without heavy loss on both sides. Our wounded died almost
all, and it was thought the drugs wherewith they were dressed had
been poisoned. Wherefore M. de Guise, and MM. the princes, went
so far as to beg the King that if it were possible I should be
sent to them with a supply of drugs, and they believed their
drugs were poisoned, seeing that few of their wounded escaped. My
belief is that there was no poison; but the severe cutlass and
arquebus wounds, and the extreme cold, were the cause why so many
died. The King wrote to M. the Marshal de Saint Andre, who was
his Lieutenant at Verdun, to find means to get me into Metz,
whatever way was possible. MM. the Marshal de Saint Andre, and
the Marshal de Vielleville, won over an Italian captain, who
promised to get me into the place, which he did (and for this he
had fifteen hundred crowns). The King having heard the promise
that the Italian captain had made, sent for me, and commanded me
to take of his apothecary, named Daigne, so many and such drugs
as I should think necessary for the wounded within the town;
which I did, as much as a post-horse could carry. The King gave
me messages to M. de Guise, and to the princes and the captains
that were in Metz.
When I came to Verdun, some days after, M. the Marshal de Saint
Andre got horses for me and for my man, and for the Italian
captain, who spoke excellent German, Spanish, and Walloon, beside
his own mother-tongue. When we were within eight or ten leagues
of Metz, we began to go by night only; and when we came near the
enemy's camp I saw, more than a league and a half off, fires
lighted all round the town, as if the whole earth were burning;
and I believed we could never pass through these fires without
being discovered, and therefore hanged and strangled, or cut in
pieces, or made to pay a great ransom. To speak truth, I could
well and gladly have wished myself back in Paris, for the great
danger that I foresaw. God guided our business so well, that we
entered into the town at midnight, thanks to a signal the captain
had with another captain of the company of M. de Guise; to whom I
went, and found him in bed, and he received me with high favour,
being right glad at my coming.
I gave him my message as the King had commanded me, and told him
I had a little letter for him, and the next day I would not fail
to deliver it. Then he ordered me a good lodging, and that I
should be well treated, and said I must not fail next morning to
be upon the breach, where I should find all the princes and
seigneurs, and many captains. Which I did, and they received me
with great joy, and did me the honour to embrace me, and tell me
I was welcome; adding they would no more be afraid of dying, if
they should happen to be wounded.
M. le Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon was the first who entertained
me, and inquired what they were saying at the Court concerning
the town of Metz. I told him all that I chose to tell. Forthwith
he begged me to go and see one of his gentlemen named M. de
Magnane, now Chevalier of the Order of the King, and Lieutenant
of His Majesty's Guards, who had his leg broken by a cannon-shot.
I found him in bed, his leg bent and crooked, without any
dressing on it, because a gentleman promised to cure him, having
his name and his girdle, with certain words (and the poor patient
was weeping and crying out with pain, not sleeping day or night
for four days past). Then I laughed at such cheating and false
promises; and I reduced and dressed his leg so skilfully that he
was without pain, and slept all the night, and afterward, thanks
be to God, he was healed, and is still living now, in the King's
service. The Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon sent me a cask of wine,
bigger than a pipe of Anjou, to my lodging, and told me when it
was drunk, he would send me another; that was how he treated me,
most generously.
After this, M, de Guise gave me a list of certain captains and
seigneurs, and bade me tell them what the King had charged me to
say; which I did, and this was to commend him to them, and give
them his thanks for the duty they had done and were doing in
holding his town of Metz, and that he would remember it. I was
more than eight days acquitting myself of this charge, because
they were many. First, to all the princes; then to others, as the
Duke Horace, the Count de Martigues, and his brother M. de Bauge,
the Seigneurs de Montmorency and d'Anville, now Marshal of
France, M. de la Chapelle aux Ursins, Bonnivet, Carouge, now
Governor of Rouen, the Vidasme de Chartres, the Count de Lude, M.
de Biron, now Marshal of France, M. de Randan, la Rochefoucaut,
Bordaille, d' Estres the younger, M. de Saint Jehan en pauphine,
and many others whom it would take too long to name; and also to
many captains, who had all done their duty well for the defence
of their lives and of the town. Afterward I asked M. de Guise
what it pleased him I should do with the drugs I had brought with
me; he bade me distribute them to the surgeons and apothecaries,
and principally to the poor wounded soldiers, who were in great
numbers in the Hospital. Which I did, and can truly say I could
not so much as go and see all the wounded, who kept sending for
me to visit and dress them.
All the seigneurs within the town asked me to give special care,
above all the rest; to M. de Pienne, who had been wounded, while
on the breach, by a stone shot from a cannon, on the temple, with
fracture and depression of the bone. They told me that so soon as
he received the blow, he fell to the ground as dead, and cast
forth blood by the mouth, nose, and ears, with great vomiting,
and was fourteen days without being able to speak or reason; also
he had tremors of a spasmodic nature, and all his face was
swelled and livid, He was trepanned at the side of the temporal
muscle, over the frontal bone. I dressed him, with other
surgeons, and God healed him; and to-day he is still living,
thank God.
The Emperor attacked the town with forty double cannons, and the
powder was not spared day or night. So soon as M. de Guise saw
the artillery set and pointed to make a breach, he had the
nearest houses pulled down and made into ramparts, and the beams
and joists were put end to end, and between them faggots, earth,
beds, and wool-packs; then they put above them other beams and
joists as before. And there was plenty of wood from the houses in
the suburbs; which had been razed to the ground, for fear the
enemy should get under cover of them, and make use of the wood;
it did very well for repairing the breach. Everybody was hard at
work carrying earth to repair it, day and night; MM. the princes,
the seigneurs, and captains, lieutenants, ensigns, were all
carrying the basket, to set an example to the soldiers and
citizens to do the like, which they did; even the ladies and
girls, and those who had not baskets, made use of cauldrons,
panniers, sacks, sheets, and all such things to carry the earth;
so that the enemy had no sooner broken down the wall than they
found behind it a yet stronger rampart. The wall having fallen,
our men cried out at those outside, "Fox, fox, fox," and they
vented a thousand insults against one another. M. de Guise
forbade any man on pain of death to speak with those outside, for
fear there should be some traitor who would betray what was being
done within the town. After this order, our men tied live cats to
the ends of their pikes, and put them over the wall and cried
with the cats, "Miaut, Miaut."
Truly the Imperials were much enraged, having been so long making
a breach, at great loss, which was eighty paces wide, that fifty
men of their front rank should enter in, only to find a rampart
stronger than the wall. They threw themselves upon the poor cats,
and shot them with arquebuses as men shoot at the popinjay.
Our men often ran out upon them, by order of M. de Guise; a few
days ago, our men had all made haste to enrol themselves in
sallying-parties, chiefly the young nobility, led by experienced
captains; and indeed it was doing them a great favour to let them
issue from the town and run upon the enemy. They went forth
always an hundred or six score men, well armed with cutlasses,
arquebuses, pistols, pikes, partisans, and halbards; and advanced
as far as the trenches, to take the enemy unawares. Then an
alarum would be sounded all through the enemy's camp, and their
drums would beat plan, plan, ta ti ta, ta ta ti ta, tou touf
touf. Likewise their trumpets and clarions rang and sounded, To
saddle, to saddle, to saddle, to horse, to horse, to horse, to
saddle, to horse, to horse. And all their soldiers cried, "Arm,
arm arm! to arms, to arms, to arms! arm, to arms, arm, to arms,
arm":--like the hue-and-cry after wolves; and all diverse
tongues, according to their nations; and you saw them come out of
their tents and little lodgings, as thick as little ants when you
uncover the ant-hills, to bring help to their comrades, who were
having their throats cut like sheep. Their cavalry also came from
all sides at full gallop, patati, patata, patati, patata, pa, ta,
ta, patata pata, ta, eager to be in the thick of the fighting, to
give and take their share of the blows. And when our men saw
themselves hard pressed, they would turn back into the town,
fighting all the way; and those pursuing them were driven back
with cannon-shots, and the cannons were loaded with flint-stones
and with big pieces of iron, square or three-sided. And our men
on the wall fired a volley, and rained bullets on them as thick
as hail, to send them back to their beds; whereas many remained
dead on the field: and our men also did not all come back with
whole skins, and there were always some left behind (as it were a
tax levied on us) who were joyful to die on the bed of honour.
And if there was a horse wounded, it was skinned and eaten by the
soldiers, instead of beef and bacon; and if a man was wounded, I
must run and dress him. Some days afterward there were other
sallies, which infuriated the enemy, that we would not let him
sleep a little in safety.
M. de Guise played a trick upon them: he sent a peasant, who was
none of the wisest, with two letters to the King, and gave him
ten crowns, and promised the King would give him an hundred if he
got the letters to him. In the one letter M. de Guise told the
King that the enemy shewed no of retreating, and had put forth
all their strength made a great breach, which he hoped to defend,
even at the cost of his own life and of all who were in the town;
and that the enemy had planted their artillery so well in a
certain place (which he named) that it was with great difficulty
he could keep them from entering the town, seeing it was the
weakest place in the town; but soon he hoped to rebuild it well,
so that they should not be able to enter. This letter was sewed
in the lining of the man's doublet, and he was told to be very
careful not to speak of it to any person. And the other letter
was given to him, wherein M. de Guise told the King that he and
all those besieged with him hoped to guard the town well; and
other matters which I leave untold here. He sent out the man at
night, and he was taken by the enemy's guard and brought to the
Duke of Alva, that the Duke might hear what was doing in the
town; and the peasant was asked if he had any letters. He said
"Yes," and gave them the one; and they having seen it asked him
if he had not another. He said "No." Then he was searched, and
they found on him that which was sewed in his doubtlet; and the
poor messenger was handed and strangled.
The letters were taken to the Emperor, who called his council,
where it was resolved, since they had been unable to do anything
at the first breach, the artillery should forthwith be set
against the place which they thought weakest, where they put
forth all their strength to make a fresh breach; and they sapped
and mined the wall, and tried hard to make a way into the Hell
Tower, but dared not assault it openly.
The Duke of Alva represented to the Emperor that every day their
soldiers were dying, to the number of more than two hundred, and
there was so little hope of entering the town, seeing the time of
year and the great number of our soldiers who were in it. The
Emperor asked what men they were who were dying, and whether they
were gentlemen and men of mark; answer was made to him "They were
all poor soldiers." Then said he, "It was no great loss if they
died," comparing them to caterpillars, grasshoppers, and
cockchafers, which eat up the buds and other good things of the
earth; and if they were men of any worth they would not be in his
camp at six livres the month, and therefore it was no great harm
if they died. Moreover, he said he would never depart from the
town till he had taken it by force or by famine, though he should
lose all his army; because of the great number of princes who
were shut up in it, with the greater part of the nobility of
France, who he hoped would pay his expenses four times over; and
he would go yet again to Paris, to see the Parisians, and to make
himself King of all the kingdom of France.
M. de Guise, with the princes, captains, and soldiers, and in
general all the citizens of the town, having heard the Emperor's
resolve to exterminate us all, forbade the soldiers and citizens,
and even the princes and seigneurs, to eat fresh fish or venison,
or partridges, woodcocks, larks, francolines, plovers, or other
game, for fear these had acquired any pestilential air which
could bring infection among us. So they had to content themselves
with the fare of the army; biscuit, beef, salt cow-beef, bacon,
cervelas, and Mayence hams; also fish, as haddock, salmon, shad,
tunny, whale, anchovy, sardines, herrings; also peas, beans,
rice, garlic, onions, prunes, cheeses, butter, oil, and salt;
pepper, ginger, nutmegs and other spices to put in our pies,
mostly of horses, which without the spice had a very bad taste.
Many citizens, having gardens in the town, had planted them with
fine radishes, turnips, carrots, and leeks, which they kept
flourishing and very dear, for the extreme necessity of the
famine. Now all these stores were distributed by weight, measure,
and justice, according to the quality of the persons, because we
knew not how long the siege would last. For after we heard the
Emperors words, how he would not depart from before Metz, till he
had taken it by force or by famine, the victuals were cut down;
and what they used to distribute to three soldiers was given to
four; and it was forbidden to them to sell the remains which
might be left after their meals; but they might give them to the
rabble. And they always rose from table with an appetite, for
fear they should be subject to take physick.
And before we surrendered to the mercy of the enemy, we had
determined to eat the asses, mules, and horses, dogs, cats, and
rats, even our boots and collars, and other skins that we could
have softened and stewed. And, in a word, all the besieged were
resolved to defend themselves valiantly with all instruments of
war; to set the artillery at the entry of the breach, and load
with balls, stones, cart-nails, bars and chains of iron; also all
sorts and kinds of artificial fires, as barricadoes, grenades,
stink-pots, torches, squibs, fire-traps, burning faggots; with
boiling water, melted lead, and lime, to put out the enemy's
eyes. Also, they were to make holes right through their houses,
and put arquebusiers in them, to take the enemy in flank and
hasten his going, or else give him stop then and there. Also they
were to order the women to pull up the streets, and throw from
their windows billets, tables, trestles, benches, and stools, to
dash out the enemy's brains. Moreover, a little within the
breach, there was a great stronghold full of carts and palisades,
tuns and casks; and barricades of earth to serve as gabions,
interlaid with falconets, falcons, field-pieces, crooked
arquebuses, pistols, arquebuses, and wildfires, to break their
legs and thighs, so that they would be taken from above and on
the flank and from behind; and if they had carried this
stronghold, there were others where the streets crossed, every
hundred paces, which would have been as bad friends to them as
the first, or worse, and would have made many widows and orphans.
And if fortune had been so hard on us that they had stormed and
broken up our strongholds, there would yet have been seven great
companies, drawn up in square and in triangle, to fight them all
at once, each led by one of the princes, for the better
encouragement of our men to fight and die all together, even to
the last breath of their souls. And all were resolved to bring
their treasures, rings, and jewels, and their best and richest
and most beautiful household stuffs, and burn them to ashes in
the great square, lest the enemy should take them and make
trophies of them. Also there were men charged to set fire to all
the stores and burn them, and to stave in all the wine-casks;
others to set fire to every single house, to burn the enemy and
us together. The citizens thus were all of one mind, rather than
see the bloody knife at their throats, and their wives and
daughters ravished and taken by the cruel savage Spaniards.
Now we had certain prisoners, who had been made secretly to
understand our last determination and desperation; these
prisoners M. de Guise sent away on parole, who being come to
their camp, lost no time in saying what we had told them; which
restrained the great and vehement desire of the enemy, so that
they were no longer eager to enter the town to cut our throats
and enrich themselves with the spoils. The Emperor, having heard
the decision of this great warrior, M. de Guise, put water in his
wine, and restrained his fury; saying that he could not enter the
town save with vast butchery and carnage, and shedding of much
blood, both of those defending and of those attacking, and they
would be all dead together, and in the end he would get nothing
but ashes; and afterward men might say it was a like destruction
to that of the town of Jerusalem, made of old time by Titus and
Vespasian.
The Emperor thus having heard our last resolve, and seeing how
little he had gained by his attack, sappings, and mines, and the
great plague that was through all his camp, and the adverse time
of the year, and the want of victuals and of money, and how his
soldiers were disbanding themselves and going off in great
companies, decided at last to raise the siege and go away, with
the cavalry of his vanguard, and the greater part of the
artillery and engines of war. The Marquis of Brandebourg was the
last to budge from his place; he had with him some troops of
Spaniards and Bohemians, and his German regiments, and there he
stopped for a day and a half, to the great regret of M. de Guise,
who brought four pieces of artillery out of the town, which he
fired on him this side and that, to hurry him off: and off he
went, sure enough, and all his men with him.
When he was a quarter of a league from Metz, he was seized with a
panic lest our cavalry should fall upon his tail; so he set fire
to his store of powder, and left behind him some pieces of
artillery, and a quantity of baggage, which he could not take
along with him, because their vanguard and their great cannons
had broken and torn tip the roads. Our cavalry were longing with
all their hearts to issue from the town and attack him behind;
but M. de Guise never let them, saying on the contrary we had
better make their way smooth for them, and build them gold and
silver bridges to let them go; like the good pastor and shepherd,
who will not lose one of his sheep.
That is how our dear and well-beloved Imperials went away from
Metz, which was the day after Christmas Day, to the great content
of those within the walls, and the praise of the princes,
seigneurs, captains, and soldiers, who had endured the travail of
this siege for more than two months. Nevertheless, they did not
all go: there wanted more than twenty thousand of them, who were
dead, from our artillery and the fighting, or from plague, cold,
and starvation (and from spite and rage that they could not get
into the town to cut our throats and plunder us): and many of
their horses also died, the greater part whereof they had eaten
instead of beef and bacon. We went where their camp had been,
where we found many dead bodies not yet buried, and the earth all
worked up, as one sees in the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents
during some time of many deaths. In their tents, pavilions, and
lodgings were many sick people. Also cannon-shot, weapons, carts,
waggons, and other baggage, with a great quantity of soldier's
bread, spoiled and rotted by the snows and rains (yet the
soldiers had it but by weight and measure). Also they left a good
store of wood, all that remained of the houses they had
demolished and broken down in the villages for two or three
leagues around; also many other pleasure-houses, that had
belonged to our citizens, with gardens and fine orchards full of
diverse fruit-trees. And without all this, they would have been
benumbed and dead of the cold, and forced to raise the siege
sooner than they did.
M. de Guise had their dead buried, and their sick people treated.
Also the enemy left behind them in the Abbey of Saint Arnoul many
of their wounded soldiers, whom they could not possibly take with
them. M. de Guise sent them all victuals enough, and ordered me
and the other surgeons to go dress and physick them, which we did
with good will; and I think they would not have done the like for
our men. For the Spaniard is very cruel, treacherous, and
inhuman, and so far enemy of all nations: which is proved by
Lopez the Spaniard, and Benzo of Milan, and others who have
written the history of America and the West Indies: who have had
to confess that the cruelty, avarice, blasphemies, and wickedness
of the Spaniards have utterly estranged the poor Indians from the
religion that these Spaniards professed. And all write that they
are of less worth than the idolatrous Indians, for their cruel
treatment of these Indians.
And some days later M. de Guise sent a trumpet to Thionville to
the enemy, that they could send for their wounded in safety:
which they did with carts and waggons, but not enough. M. de
Guise gave them carts and carters, to help to take them to
Thionville. Our carters, when they returned, told us the roads
were all paved with dead bodies, and they never got half the men
there, for they died in their carts: and the Spaniards seeing
them at the point of death, before they had breathed their last,
threw them out of the carts and buried them in the mud and mire,
saying they had no orders to bring back dead men. Moreover, our
carters said they had found on the roads many carts stuck in the
mud, full of baggage, for which the enemy dared not send back,
lest we who were within Metz should run out upon them.
I would return to the reason why so many of them died; which was
mostly starvation, the plague, and cold. For the snow was more
than two feet deep upon the ground, and they were lodged in pits
below the ground, covered only with a little thatch.
Nevertheless, each soldier had his camp-bed, and a coverlet all
strewed with stars, glittering and shining brighter than fine
gold, and every day they had white sheets, and lodged at the sign
of the Moon, and enjoyed themselves if only they had been able,
and paid their host so well over night that in the morning they
went off quits, shaking their ears; and they had no need of a
comb to get the down and feathers out of their beards and hair,
and they always found a white table-cloth, and would have enjoyed
good meals but for want of food. Also the greater part of them
had neither boots, half-boots, slippers, hose, nor shoes: and
most of them would rather have none than any, because they were
always in the mire up to mid-leg. And because they went bare-
foot, we called them the Emperor's Apostles.
After the camp was wholly dispersed, I distributed my patients
into the hands of the surgeons of the town, to finish dressing
them: then I took leave of M. de Guise, and returned to the King,
who received me with great favour, and asked me how I had been
able to make my way into Metz. I told him fully all that I had
done. He gave me two hundred crowns, and an hundred which I had
when I set out: and said he would never leave me poor. Then I
thanked him very humbly for the good and the honour he was
pleased to do me.
THE JOURNEY TO HESDIN. 1553
The Emperor Charles laid siege to the town of Therouenne; and M.
le Due de Savoie was General of his whole army. It was taken by
assault: and there was a great number of our men killed and taken
prisoners.
The King, wishing to prevent the enemy from besieging the town
and castle of Hesdin also, sent thither MM. le Duc de Bouillon,
le Duc Horace, le Marquis de Villars, and a number of captains,
and about eighteen hundred soldiers: and during the siege of
Therouenne, these Seigneurs fortified the castle of Hesdin, so
that it seemed to be impregnable. The King sent me to the
Seigneurs, to help them with my art, if they should come to have
need of it.
Soon after the capture of Therouenne, we were besieged in Hesdin.
There was a clear stream of running water within shot of our
cannon, and about it were fourscore or an hundred of the enemy's
rabble, drawing water. I was on a rampart watching the enemy
pitch their camp; and, seeing the crowd of idlers round the
stream, I asked M. du Pont, commissary of the artillery, to send
one cannon-shot among this canaille: he gave me a flat refusal,
saying that all this sort of people was not worth the powder
would be wasted on them. Again I begged him to level the cannon,
telling him, "The more dead, the fewer enemies;" which he did for
my sake: and the shot killed fifteen or sixteen, and wounded
many. Our men made sorties against the enemy, wherein many were
killed and wounded on both sides, with gunshot or with fighting
hand to hand; and our men often sallied out before their trenches
were made; so that I had my work cut out for me, and had no rest
either day or night for dressing the wounded.
And here I would note that we had put many of them in a great
tower, laying them on a little straw: and their pillows were
stones, their coverlets were cloaks, those who had any. When the
attack was made, so often as the enemy's cannons were fired, our
wounded said they felt pain in their wounds, as if you had struck
them with a stick: one was crying out on his head, the other on
his arm, and so with the other parts of the body: and many had
their wounds bleed again, even more profusely than at the time
they were wounded, and then I had to run to staunch them. Mon
petit maistre, if you had been there, you would have been much
hindered with your hot irons; you would have wanted a lot of
charcoal to heat them red, and sure you would have been killed
like a calf for your cruelty. Many died of the diabolical storm
of the echo of these engines of artillery, and the vehement
agitation and severe shock of the air acting on their wounds;
others because they got no rest for the shouting and crying that
were made day and night, and for want of good food, and other
things needful for their treatment. Mon petit maistre, if you had
been there, no doubt you could have given them jelly,
restoratives, gravies, pressed meats, broth, barley-water,
almond-milk, blanc-mange, prunes, plums, and other food proper
for the sick; but your diet would have been only on paper, and in
fact they had nothing but beef of old shrunk cows, seized round
Hesdin for our provision, salted and half-cooked, so that he who
would eat it must drag at it with his teeth, as birds of prey
tear their food. Nor must I forget the linen for dressing their
wounds, which was only washed daily and dried at the fire, till
it was as hard as parchment: I leave you to think how their
wounds could do well. There were four big fat rascally women who
had charge to whiten the linen, and were kept at it with the
stick; and yet they had not water enough to do it, much less
soap. That is how the poor patients died, for want of food and
other necessary things.
One day the enemy feigned a general attack, to draw our soldiers
into the breach, that they might see what we were like: every man
ran thither. We had made a great store of artificial fires to
defend the breach; a priest of M. le Duc de Bouillon took a
grenade, thinking to throw it at the enemy, and lighted it before
he ought: it burst, and set fire to all our store, which was in a
house near the breach. This was a terrible disaster for us,
because it burned many poor soldiers; it even caught the house,
and we had all been burned, but for help given to put it out;
there was only one well in the castle with any water in it, and
this was almost dry, and we took beer to put it out instead of
water; afterward we were in great want of water, and to drink
what was left we must strain it through napkins.
The enemy, seeing the explosion and violence of the fires, which
made a wonderful flame and thundering, thought we had lit them on
purpose to defend the breach, and that we had many more of them.
This made them change their minds, to have us some other way than
by attack: they dug mines, and sapped the greater part of our
walls, till they came near turning our castle altogether upside
down; and when the sappers had finished their work, and their
artillery was fired, all the castle shook under our feet like an
earthquake, to our great astonishment. Moreover, they had
levelled five pieces of artillery, which they had placed on a
little hillock, so as to have us from behind when we were gone to
defend the breach. M. le Duc Horace had a cannonshot on the
elbow, which carried off his arm one way and his body the other,
before he could say a single word; his death was a great disaster
to us, for the high rank that he held in the town. Also M. de
Martigues had a gunshot wound which pierced his lungs: I dressed
him, as I shall tell hereafter.
Then we asked leave to speak with the enemy; and a trumpet was
sent to the Prince of Piedmont, to know what terms he would give
us. He answered that all the leaders, such as gentlemen,
captains, lieutenants, and ensigns, would be taken prisoners for
ransom, and the soldiers would leave the town without their arms;
and if we refused this fair and honest offer, we might rest
assured they would take us next day, by attack or otherwise.
A council was held, to which I was called, to know if I would
sign the surrender of the town; with many captains, gentlemen,
and others. I answered it was not possible to hold the town, and
I would sign the surrender with my own blood, for the little hope
I had we could resist the enemy's forces, and for the great
longing I had to be out of this hell and utter torture; for I
slept neither night nor day for the great number of the wounded,
who were about two hundred. The dead were advanced in
putrefaction, piled one upon the other like faggots, and not
covered with earth, because we had none. And if I went into a
soldier's lodging, there were soldiers waiting for me at the door
when I came out, for me to dress others; it was who should have
me, and they carried me like the body of a saint, with my feet
off the ground, fighting for me. I could not satisfy this great
number of wounded: nor had I got what I wanted for their
treatment. For it is not enough that the surgeon do his duty
toward his patients, but the patient also must do his; and the
assistants, and external things, must work together for him: see
Hippocrates, Aphorism the First.
Having heard that we were to surrender the place, I knew our
business was not prospering; and for fear of being known, I gave
a velvet coat, a satin doublet, and a cloak of fine cloth trimmed
with velvet, to a soldier; who gave me a bad doublet all torn and
ragged with wear, and a frayed leather collar, and a bad hat, and
a short cloak; I dirtied the neck of my shirt with water mixed
with a little soot, I rubbed my hose with a stone at the knees
and over the heels, as though they had been long worn, I did the
same to my shoes, till one would have taken me for a chimney-
sweep rather than a King's surgeon. I went in this gear to M. de
Martigues, and prayed him to arrange I should stop with him to
dress him; which he granted very willingly, and was as glad I
should be near him as I was myself.
Soon afterward, the commissioners who were to select the
prisoners entered the castle, the seventeenth day of July, 1553.
They took prisoners MM. le Due de Bouillon, le Marquis de
Villars, de Roze, le Baron de Culan, M. du Pont, commissary of
the artillery, and M. de Martigues; and me with him, because he
asked them; and all the gentlemen who they knew could pay ransom,
and most of the soldiers and the leaders of companies; so many
and such prisoners as they wished. And then the Spanish soldiers
entered by the breach, unresisted; our men thought they would
keep their faith and agreement that all lives should be spared.
They entered the town in a fury to kill, plunder, and ravage
everything: they took a few men, hoping to have ransom for them.
... If they saw they could not get it, they cruelly put them to
death in cold blood. ... And they killed them all with daggers,
and cut their throats. Such was their great cruelty and
treachery; let him trust them who will.
To return to my story: when I was taken from the castle into the
town, with M. de Martigues, there was one of M. de Savoie's
gentlemen, who asked me if M. de Martigues's wound could be
cured. I told him no, that it was incurable: and off he went to
tell M. le Due de Savoie. I bethought myself they would send
physicians and surgeons to dress M. de Martigues; and I argued
within myself if I ought to play the simpleton, and not let
myself be known for a surgeon, lest they should keep me to dress
their wounded, and in the end I should be found to be the King's
surgeon, and they would make me pay a big ransom. On the other
hand, I feared, if I did not show I was a surgeon and had dressed
M. de Martigues skilfully, they would cut my throat. Forthwith I
made up my mind to show them he would not die for want of having
been well dressed and nursed.
Soon after, sure enough, there came many gentlemen, with the
Emperor's physician, and his surgeon, and those belonging to M.
de Savoie, and six other surgeons of his army, to see M. de
Martigues's wound, and to know of me how I had dressed and
treated it. The Emperor's physician bade me declare the essential
nature of the wound, and what I had done for it. And all his
assistants kept their ears wide open, to know if the wound were
or were not mortal. I commenced my discourse to them, how M.
Martigues, looking over the wall to mark those who were sapping
it, was shot with an arquebus through the body, and I was called
of a sudden to dress him. I found blood coming from his mouth and
from his wounds. Moreover, he bad a great difficulty of breathing
in and out, and air came whistling from the wounds, so that it
would have put out a candle; and he said he had a very great
stabbing pain where the bullet had entered. ... I withdrew some
scales of bone, and put in each wound a tent with a large head,
fastened with a thread, lest on inspiration it should be drawn
into the cavity of the chest; which has happened with surgeons,
to the detriment of the poor wounded; for being fallen in, you
cannot get them out; and then they beget corruption, being
foreign bodies. The tents were anointed with a preparation of
yolk of egg, Venice turpentine, and a little oil of roses. ... I
put over the wounds a great plaster of diachylum, wherewith I had
mixed oil of roses, and vinegar, to avoid inflammation. Then I
applied great compresses steeped in oxycrate, and bandaged him,
not too tight, that he might breathe easily. Next, I drew five
basons of blood from his right arm, considering his youth and his
sanguine temperament. ... Fever took him, soon after he was
wounded, with feebleness of the heart. ... His diet was barley-
water, prunes with sugar, at other times broth: his drink was a
ptisane. He could lie only on his back. ... What more shall I
say? but that my Lord de Martigues never had an hour's rest after
he was wounded. ... These things considered, Gentlemen, no other
prognosis is possible, save that he will die in a few days, to my
great grief.
Having finished my discourse, I dressed him as I was accustomed.
When I displayed his wounds, the physicians and surgeons, and
other assistants present, knew the truth of what I had said. The
physicians, having felt his pulse and seen that the vital forces
were depressed and spent, agreed with me that in a few days he
would die. Then they all went to the Duc de Savoie, and told him
M. de Martigues would die in a short time. He answered them,
"Possibly, if he had been well dressed, he might have escaped
death." Then they all with one voice said he had been very well
dressed and cared for altogether, and it could not be better, and
it was impossible to cure him, and his wound was of necessity
mortal. Then M. de Savoie was very angry with them, and cried,
and asked them again if for certain they all held his case
hopeless: they answered, yes.
Then a Spanish impostor came forward, who promised on his life to
cure him; and if he did not, they should cut him in an hundred
pieces; but he would have no physicians, nor surgeons nor
apothecaries with him: and M. le Duc de Savoie forthwith bade the
physicians and surgeons not go near M. de Martigues; and sent a
gentleman to bid me, under pain of death, not so much as to touch
him. Which I promised, and was very glad, for now he would not
die under my hands; and the impostor was told to dress him, and
to have with him no other physicians or surgeons, but only
himself. By and bye he came, and said to M. de Martigues, "Senor
Cavallero, M. de Savoie has bid me come and dress your wound. I
swear to God, before eight days I will set you on horseback,
lance in hand, provided none touch you but I alone. You shall eat
and drink whatever you like. I will be dieted instead of you; and
you may trust me to perform what I promise. I have cured many who
had worse wounds than yours." And the Seigneurs answered him,
"God give you His grace for it."
He asked for a shirt of M. de Martigues, and tore it in little
strips, which he laid cross-wise, muttering and murmuring certain
words over the wounds: having done this much for him, he let him
eat and drink all he would, saying he himself would be dieted in
his stead; which he did, eating but six prunes and six morsels of
bread for dinner, and drinking only beer. Nevertheless, two days
later, M. de Martigues died: and my friend the Spaniard, seeing
him at the point of death, eclipsed himself, and got away without
good-bye to any man. And I believe if he had been caught he would
have been hanged and strangled, for the false promise he made to
M. le Due de Savoie and many other gentlemen. M. de Martigues
died about ten o'clock in the morning; and after dinner M. de
Savoie sent the physicians and surgeons, and his apothecary, with
a store of drugs to embalm him. They came with many gentlemen and
captains of his army.
The Emperor's surgeon came to me, and asked me in a very friendly
way to make, the embalmment; which I refused, saying that I was
not worthy to carry his instrument-box after him. He begged me
again to do it to please him, and that he would be very glad of
it...Seeing his kindness, and fearing to displease him, I then
decided to show them the anatomist that I was, expounding to them
many things, which would here be too long to recite... Our
discourse finished, I embalmed the body; and it was placed in a
coffin. Then the Emperor's surgeon drew me aside, and told me, if
I would stop with him, he would treat me well, and give me a new
suit of clothes, and set me on horseback. I gave him many thanks,
and said I had no wish to serve any country but my own. Then he
told me I was a fool, and if he were a prisoner as I was, he
would serve a devil to get his freedom. In the end I told him
flat I would not stop with him. The Emperor's physician then went
back to M. de Savoie, and explained to him the causes of M. de
Martigues' death, and that it was impossible for all the men in
the world to have cured him; and assured him again I had done all
that was to be done, and besought him to take me into his
service; saying much more good of me than there was. He having
been persuaded to do this, sent to me one of his stewards, M. du
Bouchet, to tell me, if I would serve him, he would use me well;
I sent back my very humble thanks, and that I had decided not to
take service under any foreigner. When he heard my answer he was
very angry, and said I ought to be sent to the galleys.
M. de Vaudeville, Governor of Graveline, and colonel of seventeen
ensigns of infantry, asked him to send me to him, to dress an old
ulcer on his leg, that he had had for six or seven years. M. de
Savoie said he was willing, so far as I was concerned; and if I
used the cautery to his leg, it would serve him right. M. de
Vaudeville answered, if he saw me trying it, he would have my
throat cut. Soon after, he sent for me four German halberdiers of
his guard; and I was terrified, for I did not know where they
were taking me: they spoke no more French than I German. When I
was come to his lodging, he bade me welcome, and said, now I
belonged to him; and so soon as I had healed him, he would let me
go without ransom. I told him I had no means to pay any ransom.
He called his physician and his surgeon-in-ordinary, to show me
his leg; and when we had examined it, we withdrew into a room,
where I began my discourse to them. ... Then the physician left
me with the surgeon, and went back to M. de Vaudeville, and said
he was sure I could cure him, and told him all I had decided to
do; which pleased him vastly. He sent for me, and asked if I
thought I could cure him; I said yes, if he were obedient to what
was necessary. He promised to do only what I wished and ordered;
and so soon as he was healed, he would let me go home without
ransom. Then I asked him to make better terms with me, saying it
was too long to wait for my liberty: in fifteen days I hoped his
ulcer would be less than half its present size, and give no pain;
then his own surgeon and physician could finish the cure. He
granted this to me. Then I took a piece of paper to measure the
size of the ulcer, and gave it to him, and kept another by me; I
asked him to keep his promise, when I had done my work; he swore
by the faith of a gentleman he would. Then I set myself to dress
him properly, after the manner of Galen. ... He wished to know if
it were true, what I said of Galen, and bade his physician look
to it, for he would know it for himself; he had the book put on
the table, and found that what I said was true; so the physician
was ashamed, and I was glad. Within the fifteen days, it was
almost all healed; and I began to feel happy about the compact
made between us. He had me to eat and drink at his table, when
there were no more great persons than he and I only. He gave me a
big red scarf which I must wear; which made me feel something
like a dog when they give him a clog, to stop him eating the
grapes in the vineyards. His physician and surgeon took me
through the camp to visit their wounded; and I took care to
observe what our enemy was doing. I found they had no more great
cannons, but only twenty-five or thirty field-pieces.
M. de Vaudeville held prisoner M. de Bauge, brother of M. de
Martigues who died at Hesdin. M. de Bauge was prisoner at Chateau
de La Motte au Bois, belonging to the Emperor; he had been
captured at Therouenne by two Spanish soldiers; and M. de
Vaudeville, when he saw him there, concluded he must be some
gentleman of good family: he made him pull off his stockings, and
seeing his clean legs and feet, and his fine white stockings,
knew he was one to pay a good ransom. He told the soldiers he
would give them thirty crowns down for their prisoner: they
agreed gladly, for they had no place to keep him, nor food for
him, nor did they know his value: so they gave their man into his
hands, and he sent him off at once, guarded by four of his own
soldiers, to Chateau de La Motte au Bois, with others of our
gentlemen who were prisoners.
M. de Bauge would not tell who he was; and endured much hardship,
living on bread and water, with a little straw for his bed. When
Hesdin was taken, M. de Vaudeville sent the news of it to him and
to the other prisoners, and the list of the killed, and among
them M. de Martigues: and when M. de Bauge heard with his own
ears his brother was dead, he fell to crying, weeping, and
lamentation. His guards asked him why he was so miserable: he
told them, for love of M. de Martigues, his brother. When he
heard this, the captain of the castle sent straight to tell M. de
Vaudeville he had a good prisoner: who was delighted at this, and
sent me next day with four soldiers, and his own physician, to
the castle, to say that if M. de Bauge would pay him fifteen
thousand crowns ransom, he would send him home free: and he asked
only the security of two Antwerp merchants that he should name.
M. de Vaudeville persuaded me I should commend this offer to his
prisoner: that is why he sent me to the castle. He told the
captain to treat him well and put him in a room with hangings,
and strengthen his guard: and from that time onward they made a
great deal of him, at the expense of M. de Vaudeville.
M. de Bauge answered that he could not pay his ransom himself: it
depended on M. d' Estampes his uncle, and Mlle. de Bressure his
aunt: he had no means to pay such a ransom. I went back with my
guards, and gave this answer to M. de Vaudeville; who said,
"Possibly he will not get away so cheap": which was true, for
they knew who he was. Then the Queen of Hungary and M. le Duc de
Savoie sent word to M. de Vaudeville that this mouthful was too
big for him, and he must send his prisoner to them (which he
did), and he had other prisoners enough without him. The ransom
paid was forty thousand crowns, without other expenses.
On my way back to M. de Vaudeville, I passed by Saint Omer, where
I saw their great cannons, most of which were fouled and broken.
Also I passed by Therouenne, where I saw not one stone left on
another, save a vestige of the great church: for the Emperor
ordered the country people for five or six leagues round to clear
and take away the stones; so that now you may drive a cart over
the town: and the same at Hesdin, and no trace of castle and
fortress. Such is the evil that wars bring with them.
To return to my story; M. de Vaudeville soon got the better of
his ulcer, and was nearly healed: so he let me go, and sent me by
a trumpet, with passport, as far as Abbeville. I posted from
here, and went to find my master, King Henry, at Aufimon, who
received me gladly and with good favour. He sent MM. de Guise,
the Constable, and d' Estres, to hear from me the capture of
Hesdin; and I made them a true report, and assured them I had
seen the great cannons they had taken to Saint Omer: and the King
was glad, for he had feared the enemy would come further into
France. He gave me two hundred crowns to take me home: and I was
thankful to be free, out of this great torment and thunder of the
diabolical artillery, and away from the soldiers, blasphemers and
deniers of God. I must add that after Hesdin was taken, the King
was told I was not killed but taken prisoner. He made M. Goguier,
his chief physician, write to my wife that I was living, and she
was not to be unhappy, and he would pay my ransom.
BATTLE OF SAINT QUENTIN. 1557
After the battle of Saint Quentin, the King sent me to La Fere en
Tartenois, to M. le Marechal de Bourdillon, for a passport to M.
le Duc de Savoie, that I might go and dress the Constable, who
had been badly wounded in the back with a pistol-shot, whereof he
was like to die, and remained prisoner in the enemy's hands. But
never would M. le Duc de Savoie let me go to him, saying he would
not die for want of a surgeon; that he much doubted I would go
there only to dress him, and not rather to take some secret
information to him; and that he knew I was privy to other things
besides surgery, and remembered I had been his prisoner at
Hesdin. M. le Marechal told the King of this refusal: who wrote
to M. le Marechal, that if Mme. the Constable's Lady would send
some quick-witted man of her household I would give him a letter,
and had also something to say to him by word of mouth, entrusted
to me by the King and by M. le Cardinal de Lorraine. Two days
later there came one of the Constable's gentlemen of the
bedchamber, with his shirts and other linen, to whom M. le
Marechal gave a passport to go to the Constable. I was very glad,
and gave him my letter, and instructed him what his master must
do now he was prisoner.
I thought, having finished my mission, to return to the King; but
M. le Marechal begged me to stop at La Fere with him, to dress a
very great number of wounded who had retreated there after the
battle, and he would write to the King to explain why I stopped;
which I did. Their wounds were very putrid, and full of worms,
with gangrene, and corruption; and I had to make free play with
the knife to cut off what was corrupt, which was not done without
amputation of arms and legs, and also sundry trepannings. They
found no store of drugs at La Fere, because the surgeons of the
camp had taken them all away; but I found the waggons of the
artillery there, and these had not been touched. I asked M. le
Marechal to let me have some of the drugs which were in them,
which he did; and I was given the half only at one time, and five
or six days later I had to take the rest; and yet it was not half
enough to dress the great number of wounded. And to correct and
stop the corruption, and kill the worms in their wounds, I washed
them with Aegyptiacum dissolved in wine and eau-de-vie, and did
all I could for them; but in spite of all my care many of them
died.
There were at La Fere some gentlemen charged to find the dead
body of M. de Bois-Dauphin the elder, who had been killed in the
battle; they asked me to go with them to the camp, to pick him
out, if we could, among the dead; but it was not possible to
recognize him, the bodies being all far gone in corruption, and
their faces changed. We saw more than half a league round us the
earth all covered with the dead; and hardly stopped there,
because of the stench of the dead men and their horses; and so
many blue and green flies rose from them, bred of the moisture of
the bodies and the heat of the sun, that when they were up in the
air they hid the sun. It was wonderful to hear them buzzing; and
where they settled, there they infected the air, and brought the
plague with them. Mon petit maistre, I wish you had been there
with me, to experience the smells, and make report thereof to
them that were not there.
I was very weary of the place; I prayed M. le Marechal to let me
leave it, and feared I should be ill there; for the wounded men
stank past all bearing, and they died nearly all, in spite of
everything we did. He got surgeons to finish the treatment of
them, and sent me away with his good favour. He wrote to the King
of the diligence I had shown toward the poor wounded. Then I
returned to Paris, where I found many more gentlemen, who had
been wounded and gone thither after the battle.
THE JOURNEY TO THE CAMP AT AMIENS. 1558
The King sent me to Dourlan, under conduct of Captain Gouast;
with fifty men-at-arms, for fear I should be taken by the enemy;
and seeing we were always in alarms on the way, I made my man let
down, and made him the master; for I got on his horse, which
carried my valise, and could go well if we had to make our
escape, and I took his cloak and hat and gave him my mount, which
was a good little mare; he being in front, you would have taken
him for the master and me for the servant The garrison inside
Dourlan, when they saw us, thought we were the enemy, and fired
their cannon at us. Captain Gouast, my conductor, made signs to
them with his hat that we were not the enemy; at last they ceased
firing, and we entered Dourlan, to our great relief.
Five or six days before this, a sortie had been made from
Dourlan; wherein many captains and brave soldiers had been killed
or wounded: and among the wounded was Captain Saint Aubin,
vaillant comme l' espce, a great friend of M. de Guise: for whose
sake chiefly the King had sent me there. Who, being attacked with
a quartan fever, yet left his bed to command the greater part of
his company. A Spaniard, seeing him in command, perceived he was
a captain, and shot him through the neck with an arquebus.
Captain Saint Aubin thought himself killed; and by this fright I
protest to God he lost his quartan fever, and was forever free of
it. I dressed him, with Antoine Portail, surgeon-in-ordinary of
the King; and many other soldiers. Some died, others got off with
the loss of an arm or a leg or an eye, and said they had got off
cheap, to be alive at all. Then, the enemy having broken up their
camp, I returned to Paris.
I say nothing here of mon petit maistre, who was more comfortable
in his house than I at the wars.
THE JOURNEY TO BOURGES. 1562
The King with his camp was but a short time at Bourges, till
those within the walls should surrender; and they came out with
their goods saved. I know nothing worth remembering, but that a
boy of the King's kitchen, having come near the walls of the town
before the agreement had been signed, cried with a loud voice,
"Huguenot, Huguenot, shoot here, shoot here," having his arm
thrown up and his hand spread out; a soldier shot his hand right
through with a bullet. When he was thus shot, he came to find me
to dress him. And the Constable seeing the boy in tears, with his
hand all bloody, asked who had wounded him: then a gentleman who
had seen him shot said it served him right, because he kept
calling "Huguenot, hit here, aim here." And then the Constable
said, this Huguenot was a good shot and a good fellow, for most
likely if he had chosen to fire at the boy's head, he would have
hit it even more easily than his hand. I dressed the kitchen boy,
who was very ill. He recovered, but with no power in his hand:
and from that time his comrades called him "Huguenot": he is
still living now.
THE JOURNEY TO ROUEN. 1562
Now, as for the capture of Rouen, they killed many of our men
both before and at the attack: and the very next day after we had
entered the town, I trepanned eight or nine of our men, who had
been wounded with stones as they were on the breach. The air was
so malignant, that many died, even of quite small wounds, so that
some thought the bullets had been poisoned; and those within the
town said the like of us; for though they had within the town all
that was needful, yet all the same they died like those outside.
The King of Navarre was wounded, some days before the attack,
with a bullet in the shoulder. I visited him, and helped to dress
him, with one of his own surgeons, Master Gilbert, one of the
chief men of Montpellier, and others. They could not find the
bullet. I searched for it very accurately, and found reason to
believe it had entered at the top of the arm, by the head of the
bone, and had passed into the hollow part of the bone, which was
why they could not find it; and most of them said it had entered
his body and was lost in it. M. le Prince de La Roche-sur-Yon,
who dearly loved the King of Navarre, drew me aside and asked if
the wound were mortal. I told him yes, because all wounds of
great joints, and especially contused wounds, were mortal,
according to all those who have written about them. He asked the
others what they thought of it, and chiefly Master Gilbert, who
told him he had great hope his Lord the King would recover; which
made the Prince very glad.
Four days later, the King, and the Queen-mother, and M. le
Cardinal de Bourbon, his brother, and M. le Prince de la Roche-
sur-Yon, and M. de Guise, and other great persons, after we had
dressed the King of Navarre, wished us to hold a consultation in
their presence, all the physicians and surgeons together. Each of
them said what he thought, and there was not one but had good
hope, they said, that he would recover. I persisted always in the
contrary. M. le Prince, who loved me, drew me aside, and said I
was alone against the opinion of all the others, and prayed me
not to be obstinate against so many good men. I answered, When I
shall see good signs of recovery, I will change my mind. Many
consultations were held, and I never changed what I said, and the
prognosis I had made at the first dressing, and said always the
arm would fall into a gangrene: which it did, for all the care
they could give to it; and he rendered his spirit to God the
eighteenth day after his wound.
M. le Prince, having heard of it, sent to me his surgeon, and his
physician, one Lefevre, now physician-in-ordinary to the King and
Queen-mother, to say he wished to have the bullet, and we were to
look for it, to see where it was. Then I was very glad, and
assured them I should quickly find it; which I did in their
presence, with many other gentlemen: it was just in the very
middle of the bone. M. le Prince took and showed it to the King
and to the Queen, who all said that my prognosis had come true.
The body was laid to rest at Chateau Gaillard: and I returned to
Paris, where I found many patients, who had been wounded on the
breach at Rouen, and chiefly Italians, who were very eager I
should dress them: which I did willingly. Many of them recovered:
the rest died. Mon petit maistre, I think you were called to
dress some, for the great number there was of them.
THE BATTLE OF DREUX. 1562
The day after the battle of Dreux, the King bade me go and dress
M. le Comte d'Eu, who had been wounded in the right thigh, near
the hip-joint, with a pistol-shot: which had smashed and broken
the thigh-bone into many pieces: whereon many accidents
supervened, and at last death, to my great grief. The day after I
came, I would go to the camp where the battle had been, to see
the dead bodies. I saw, for a long league round, the earth all
covered: they estimated it at twenty-five thousand men or more;
and it was all done in less than two hours. I wish, mon petit
maistre, for the love I bear you, you had been there, to tell it
to your scholars and your children.
Now while I was at Dreux, I visited and dressed a great number of
gentlemen, and poor soldiers, and among the rest many of the
Swiss captains. I dressed fourteen all in one room, all wounded
with pistol-shots and other diabolical firearms, and not one of
the fourteen died. M. le Comte d'Eu being dead, I made no long
stay at Dreux. Surgeons came from Paris, who fulfilled their duty
to the wounded, as Pigray, Cointeret, Hubert, and others; and I
returned to Paris, where I found many wounded gentlemen who had
retreated thither after the battle, to have their wounds dressed;
and I was not there without seeing many of them.
THE JOURNEY TO HAVRE DE GRACE. 1563
And I will not omit to tell of the camp at Havre de Grace. When
our artillery came before the walls of the town, the English
within the walls killed some of our men, and several pioneers who
were making gabions. And seeing they were so wounded that there
was no hope of curing them, their comrades stripped them, and put
them still living inside the gabions, which served to fill them
up. When the English saw that they could not withstand our
attack, because they were hard hit by sickness, and especially by
the plague, they surrendered. The King gave them ships to return
to England, very glad to be out of this plague-stricken place.
The greater part of them died, and they took the plague to
England, and they have not got rid of it since. Captain
Sarlabous, master of the camp, was left in garrison, with six
ensigns of infantry, who had no fear of the plague; and they were
very glad to get into the town, hoping to enjoy themselves there,
Mon petit maistre, if you had been there, you would have done as
they did.
THE JOURNEY TO BAYONNE. 1564
I went with the King on that journey to Bayonne, when we were two
years and more making the tour of well-nigh all this kingdom. And
in many towns and villages I was called in consultation over
sundry diseases, with the late M. Chapelain, chief physician to
the King, and M. Castellan, chief physician to the Queen-mother;
honorable men and very learned in medicine and surgery. During
this journey, I always inquired of the surgeons if they had noted
anything rare in their practices, so that I might learn something
new. While I was at Bayonne, two things happened worthy of remark
by young surgeons. The first is, I dressed a Spanish gentleman,
who had a great and enormous swelling of the throat. He had
lately been touched by the deceased King Charles for the king's
evil. I opened his swelling. ... I left him in the hands of a
surgeon of the town, to finish his cure. M. de Fontaine, Knight
of the Order of the King, had a severe continued pestilent fever,
accompanied with many inflammatory swellings in sundry parts of
the body. He had bleeding at the nose for two days, without
ceasing, nor could we staunch it: and after this haemorrhage the
fever ceased, with much sweating, and by and bye the swellings
suppurated, and he was dressed by me, and healed by the grace of
God.
BATTLE OF SAINT DENIS, 1567
As for the battle of Saint Denis, there were many killed on both
sides. Our wounded withdrew to Paris to be dressed, with the
prisoners they had taken, and I dressed many of them. The King
ordered me, at the request of Mme. the Constable's Lady, to go to
her house to dress the Constable; who had a pistol-shot in the
middle of the spine of his back, whereby at once he lost all
feeling and movement in his thighs and legs ... because the
spinal cord, whence arise the nerves to give feeling and movement
to the parts below, was crushed, broken, and torn by the force of
the bullet. Also he lost understanding and reason, and in a few
days he died. The surgeons of Paris were hard put to it for many
days to treat all the wounded. I think, mon petit maistre, you
saw some of them. I beseech the great God of victories, that we
be never more employed in such misfortune and disaster.
VOYAGE OF THE BATTLE OF MONCONTOUR. 1569
During the battle of Moncontour, King Charles was at Plessis-les-
Tours, where he heard the news of the victory. A great number of
gentlemen and soldiers retreated into the town and suburbs of
Tours, wounded, to be dressed and treated; and the King and the
Queen-mother bade me do my duty by them, with other surgeons who
were then on duty, as Pigray, du Bois, Portail, and one Siret, a
surgeon of Tours, a man well versed in surgery, who was at this
time surgeon to the King's brother. And for the multitude of bad
cases we had scarce any rest, nor the physicians either.
M. le Comte de Mansfeld, Governor of the Duchy of Luxembourg,
Knight of the Order of the King, was severely wounded in the
battle, in the left arm, with a pistol-shot which broke a great
part of his elbow; and he withdrew to Borgueil near Tours. Then
he sent a gentleman to the King, to beg him to send one of his
surgeons, to help him of his wound. So they debated which surgeon
they should send. M. le Marechal de Montmorency told the King and
the Queen that they ought to send him their chief surgeon; and
urged that M. de Mansfeld had done much toward the victory.
The King said flat, he would not have me go, and wished me to
stop with himself. Then the Queen-mother told him I would but go
and come back, and he must remember it was a foreign lord, who
had come, at the command of the King of Spain, to help him. then
he let me go, provided I came back very soon. So he sent for me,
and the Queen-mother with him, and bade me go and find the Lord
de Mansfeld, wherever he should be, to do all I could for him to
heal his wound. I went to him, with a letter from Their
Majesties. When he saw it, he received me with good-will, and
forthwith dismissed three or four surgeons who were dressing him;
which was to my very great regret, because his wound seemed to me
incurable.
Now many gentlemen had retreated to Borgueil, having been
wounded: for they knew that M. de Guise was there, who also had
been badly wounded with a pistol-shot through the leg, and they
were sure that he would have good surgeons to dress him, and
would help them, as he is kindly and very generous, and would
relieve their wants. This he did with a will, both for their
eating and drinking, and for what else they needed: and for my
part, they had the comfort and help of my art: some died, others
recovered, according to their wounds. M. le Comte Ringrave died,
who was shot in the shoulder, like the King of Navarre before
Rouen. M. de Bassompierre, colonel of twelve hundred horse, was
wounded by a similar shot, in the same place, as M. de Mansfeld:
whom I dressed, and God healed. God blessed my work so well, that
in three weeks I sent them back to Paris: where I had still to
make incisions in M. de Mansfeld's arm, to remove some pieces of
the bones, which were badly splintered, broken, and carious. He
was healed by the grace of God, and made me a handsome present,
so I was well content with him, and he with me; as he has shown
me since. He wrote a letter to M. le Duc d' Ascot, how he was
healed of his wound, and also M. de Bassompierre of his, and many
others whom I had dressed after the battle of Moncontour; and
advised him to ask the King of France to let me visit M. le
Marquis d' Auret, his brother: which he did.
THE JOURNEY TO FLANDERS. 1569
M. le Duc d' Ascot did not fail to send a gentleman to the King,
with a letter humbly asking he would do him so much kindness and
honour as to permit and command his chief surgeon to visit M. le
Marquis d' Auret, his brother, who had received a gunshot wound
near the knee, with fracture of the bone, about seven months ago,
and the physicians and surgeons all this time had not been able
to heal him. The King sent for me and bade me go and see M. d'
Auret, and give him all the help I could, to heal him of his
wound. I told him I would employ all the little knowledge it had
pleased God to give me.
I went off, escorted by two gentlemen, to the Chateau d' Auret,
which is a league and a half from Mons in Hainault, where M. le
Marquis was lying. So soon as I had come, I visited him, and told
him the King had commanded me to come and see him and dress his
wound. He said he was very glad I had come, and was much beholden
to the King, who had done him so much honour as to send me to
him.
I found him in a high fever, his eyes deep sunken, with a
moribund and yellowish face, his tongue dry and parched, and the
whole body much wasted and lean, the voice low as of a man very
near death: and I found his thigh much inflamed, suppurating, and
ulcerated, discharging a greenish and very offensive sanies. I
probed it with a silver probe, wherewith I found a large cavity
in the middle of the thigh, and others round the knee, sanious
and cuniculate: also several scales of bone, some loose, others
not. The leg was greatly swelled, and imbued with a pituitous
humor ... and bent and drawn back. There was a large bedsore; he
could rest neither day nor night; and had no appetite to eat, but
very thirsty. I was told he often fell into a faintness of the
heart, and sometimes as in epilepsy: and often he felt sick, with
such trembling he could not carry his hands to his mouth. Seeing
and considering all these great complications, and the vital
powers thus broken down, truly I was very sorry I had come to
him, because it seemed to me there was little hope he would
escape death. All the same, to give him courage and good hope, I
told him I would soon set him on his legs, by the grace of God,
and the help of his physicians and surgeons.
Having seen him, I went a walk in a garden, and prayed God He
would show me this grace, that he should recover; and that He
would bless our hands and our medicaments, to fight such a
complication of diseases. I discussed in my mind the means I must
take to do this. They called me to dinner. I came into the
kitchen, and there I saw, taken out of a great pot, half a sheep,
a quarter of veal, three great pieces of beef, two fowls, and a
very big piece of bacon, with abundance of good herbs: then I
said to myself that the broth of the pot would be full of juices,
and very nourishing.
After dinner, we began our consultation, all the physicians and
surgeons together, in the presence of M. le Duc d' Ascot and some
gentlemen who were with him. I began to say to the surgeons that
I was astonished they had not made incisions in M. le Marquis'
thigh, seeing that it was all suppurating, and the thick matter
in it very foetid and offensive, showing it had long been pent up
there; and that I had found with the probe caries of the bone,
and scales of bone, which were already loose. They answered me:
"Never would he consent to it"; indeed, it was near two months
since they had been able to get leave to put clean sheets on his
bed; and one scarce dared touch the coverlet, so great was his
pain. Then I said, "To heal him, we must touch something else
than the coverlet of his bed." Each said what he thought of the
malady of the patient, and in conclusion they all held it
hopeless. I told them there was still some hope, because he was
young, and God and Nature sometimes do things which seem to
physicians and surgeons impossible.
To restore the warmth and nourishment of the body, general
frictions must be made with hot cloths, above, below, to right,
to left, and around, to draw the blood and the vital spirits from
within outward. ... For the bedsore, he must be put in a fresh,
soft bed, with clean shirt and sheets... Having discoursed of the
causes and complications of his malady, I said we must cure them
by their contraries; and must first ease the pain, making
openings in the thigh to let out the matter. ... Secondly, having
regard to the great swelling and coldness of the limb, we must
apply hot bricks round it, and sprinkle them with a decoction of
nerval herbs in wine and vinegar, and wrap them in napkins; and
to his feet, an earthenware bottle filled with the decoction,
corked, and wrapped in cloths. Then the thigh, and the whole of
the leg, must be fomented with a decoction made of sage,
rosemary, thyme, lavender, flowers of chamomile and melilot, red
roses boiled in white wine, with a drying powder made of oak--
ashes and a little vinegar and half a handful of salt. ...
Thirdly, we must apply to the bedsore a large plaster made of the
desiccative red ointment and of Unguentum Comitissoe, equal
parts, mixed together, to ease his pain and dry the ulcer; and he
must have a little pillow of down, to keep all pressure off it.
... And for the strengthening of his heart, we must apply over it
a refrigerant of oil of waterlilies, ointment of roses, and a
little saffron, dissolved in rose-vinegar and treacle, spread on
a piece of red cloth. For the syncope, from exhaustion of the
natural forces, troubling the brain, he must have good
nourishment full of juices, as raw eggs, plums stewed in wine and
sugar, broth of the meat of the great pot, whereof I have already
spoken; the white meat of fowls, partridges' wings minced small,
and other roast meats easy to digest, as veal, kid, pigeons,
partridges, thrushes, and the like, with sauce of orange,
verjuice, sorrel, sharp pomegranates; or he may have them boiled
with good herbs, as lettuce, purslain, chicory, bugloss,
marigold, and the like. At night he can take barley-water, with
juice of sorrel and of waterlilies, of each two ounces, with four
or five grains of opium, and the four cold seeds crushed, of each
half an ounce; which is a good nourishing remedy and will make
him sleep. His bread to be farmhouse bread, neither too stale nor
too fresh. For the great pain in his head, his hair must be cut,
and his head rubbed with rose-vinegar just warm, and a double
cloth steeped in it and put there; also a forehead-cloth, of oil
of roses and water-lilies and poppies, and a little opium and
rose-vinegar, with a little camphor, and changed from time to
time. Moreover, we must allow him to smell flowers of henbane and
water-lilies, bruised with vinegar and rose-water, with a little
camphor, all wrapped in a handkerchief, to be held some time to
his nose. ... And we must make artificial rain, pouring water
from some high place into a cauldron, that he may hear the sound
of it; by which means sleep shall be provoked on him. As for the
contraction of his leg, there is hope of righting it when we have
let out the pus and other humors pent up in the thigh, and have
rubbed the whole knee with ointment of mallows, and oil of
lilies, and a little eau-de-vie, and wrapped it in black wool
with the grease left in it; and if we put under the knee a
feather pillow doubled, little by little we shall straighten the
leg.
This my discourse was well approved by the physicians and
surgeons.
The consultation ended, we went back to the patient, and I made
three openings in his thigh. ... Two or three hours later, I got
a bed made near his old one, with fair white sheets on it; then a
strong man put him in it, and he was thankful to be taken out of
his foul stinking bed. Soon after, he asked to sleep; which he
did for near four hours; and everybody in the house began to feel
happy, and especially M. le Duc d' Ascot, his brother.
The following days, I made injections, into the depth and
cavities of the ulcers, of Aegyptiacum dissolved sometimes in
eau-de-vie, other times in wine, I applied compresses to the
bottom of the sinuous tracks, to cleanse and dry the soft spongy
flesh, and hollow leaden tents, that the sanies might always have
a way out; and above them a large plaster of Diacalcitheos
dissolved in wine. And I bandaged him so skilfully that he had no
pain; and when the pain was gone, the fever began at once to
abate. Then I gave him wine to drink moderately tempered with
water, knowing it would restore and quicken the vital forces. And
all that we agreed in consultation was done in due time and
order; and so soon as his pains and fever ceased, he began
steadily to amend. He dismissed two of his surgeons, and one of
his physicians, so that we were but three with him.
Now I stopped there about two months, not without seeing many
patients, both rich and poor, who came to me from three or four
leagues round. He gave food and drink to the needy, and commended
them all to me, asking me to help them for his sake. I protest I
refused not one, and did for them all I could, to his great
pleasure. Then, when I saw him beginning to be well, I told him
we must have viols and violins, and a buffoon to make him laugh:
which he did. In one month, we got him into a chair, and he had
himself carried about in his garden and at the door of his
chateau, to see everybody passing by.
The villagers of two or three leagues round, now they could have
sight of him, came on holidays to sing and dance, men and women,
pell-mell for a frolic, rejoiced at his good convalescence, all
glad to see him, not without plenty of laughter and plenty to
drink. He always gave them a hogshead of beer; and they all drank
merrily to his health. And the citizens of Mons in Hainault, and
other gentlemen, his neighbours, came to see him for the wonder
of it, as a man come out of the grave; and from the time he was
well, he was never without company. When one went out, another
came in to visit him; his table was always well covered. He was
dearly loved both by the nobility and by the common people; as
for his generosity, so for his handsome face and his courtesy:
with a kind look and a gracious word for everybody, so that all
who saw him had perforce to love him.
The chief citizens of Mons came one Saturday, to beg him let me
go to Mons, where they wished to entertain me with a banquet, for
their love of him. He told them he would urge me to go, which he
did; but I said such great honour was not for me, moreover they
could not feast me better than he did. Again he urged me, with
much affection, to go there, to please him; and I agreed. The
next day, they came to fetch me with two carriages: and when we
got to Mons, we found the dinner ready, and the chief men of the
town, with their ladies, who attended me with great devotion. We
sat down to dinner, and they put me at the top of the table, and
all drank to me, and to the health of M. le Marquis d'Auret:
saying he was happy, and they with him, to have had me to put him
on his legs again; and truly the whole company were full of
honour and love for him. After dinner, they brought me back to
the Chateau d'Auret, where M. le Marquis was awaiting me; who
affectionately welcomed me, and would hear what we had done at
our banquet; and I told him all the company had drunk many times
to his health.
In six weeks he began to stand a little on crutches, and to put
on fat and get a good natural colour. He would go to Beaumont,
his brother's place; and was taken there in a carrying-chair, by
eight men at a time. And the peasants in the villages through
which we passed, knowing it was M. le Marquis, fought who should
carry him, and would have us drink with them; but it was only
beer. Yet I believe if they had possessed wine, even hippocras,
they would have given it to us with a will. And all were right
glad to see him, and all prayed God for him. When we came to
Beaumont, everybody came out to meet us and pay their respects to
him, and prayed God bless him and keep him in good health. We
came to the chateau, and found there more than fifty gentlemen
whom M. le Duc d'Ascot had invited to come and be happy with his
brother; and he kept open house three whole days. After dinner,
the gentlemen used to tilt at the ring and play with the foils,
and were full of joy at the sight of M. d'Auret, for they had
heard he would never leave his bed or be healed of his wound. I
was always at the upper end of the table, and everybody drank to
him and to me, thinking to make me drunk, which they could not;
for I drank only as I always do.
A few days later, we went back; and I took my leave of Mdme. la
Duchesse d'Ascot, who drew a diamond from her finger, and gave it
me in gratitude for my good care of her brother: and the diamond
was worth more than fifty crowns. M. d'Auret was ever getting
better, and was walking all alone on crutches round his garden.
Many times I asked him to let me go back to Paris, telling him
his physician and his surgeon could do all that was now wanted
for his wound: and to make a beginning to get away from him, I
asked him to let me go and see the town of Antwerp. To this he
agreed at once, and told his steward to escort me there, with two
pages. We passed through Malines and Brussels, where the chief
citizens of the town begged us to let them know of it when we
returned; for they too wished, like those of Mons, to have a
festival for me. I gave them very humble thanks, saying I did not
deserve such honour. I was two days and a half seeing the town of
Antwerp, where certain merchants, knowing the steward, prayed he
would let them have the honour of giving us a dinner or a supper:
it was who should have us, and they were all truly glad to hear
how well M. d' Auret was doing, and made more of me than I asked.
On my return, I found M. le Marquis enjoying himself: and five or
six days later I asked his leave to go, which he gave, said he,
with great regret. And he made me a handsome present of great
value, and sent me back, with the steward, and two pages, to my
house in Paris.
I forgot to say that the Spaniards have since ruined and
demolished his Chateau d' Auret, sacked, pillaged, and burned all
the houses and villages belonging to him: because he would not be
of their wicked party in their assassinations and ruin of the
Netherlands.
I have published this Apologia, that all men may know on what
footing I have always gone: and sure there is no man so touchy
not to take in good part what I have said. For I have but told
the truth; and the purport of my discourse is plain for all men
to see, and the facts themselves are my guarantee against all
calumnies.
ON THE MOTION OF THE HEART AND BLOOD IN ANIMALS
BY WILLIAM HARVEY
TRANSLATED BY ROBERT WILLIS
AND REVISED BY ALEXANDER BOWIE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
William Harvey, whose epoch-making treatise announcing and
demonstrating the ejaculation of the blood is here printed, was
born at Folkestone, Kent, England, April 1, 1578. He was educated
at the King's School, Canterbury, and at Gonville and Caius
College, Cambridge; and studied medicine on the Continent,
receiving the degree of M.D. from the University of Padua. He
took the same degree later at both the English universities.
After his return to England he became Fellow of the College of
Physicians, physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and Lumleian
lecturer at the College of Physicians. It was in this last
capacity that he delivered, in 1616, the lectures in which he
first gave public notice of his theories on the circulation of
the blood. The notes of these lectures are still preserved in the
British Museum.
In 1618 Harvey was appointed physician extraordinary to James I,
and he remained in close professional relations to the royal
family until the close of the Civil War, being present at the
battle of Edgehill. By mandate of Charles I, he was, for a short
time, Warden of Merton College, Oxford (1645-6), and, when he was
too infirm to undertake the duties, he was offered the Presidency
of the College of Physicians. He died on June 3, 1657.
Harvey's famous "Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et
Sanguinis in Animalibus" was published in Latin at Frankfort in
1628. The discovery was received with great interest, and in his
own country was accepted at once; on the Continent it won favor
more slowly. Before his death, however, the soundness of his
views was acknowledged by the medical profession throughout
Europe, and "it remains to this day the greatest of the
discoveries of physiology, and its whole honor belongs to
Harvey."
DEDICATION
TO HIS VERY DEAR FRIEND, DOCTOR ARGENT, THE EXCELLENT AND
ACCOMPLISHED PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, AND TO
OTHER LEARNED PHYSICIANS, HIS MOST ESTEEMED COLLEAGUES.
I have already and repeatedly presented you, my learned friends,
with my new views of the motion and function of the heart, in my
anatomical lectures; but having now for more than nine years
confirmed these views by multiplied demonstrations in your
presence, illustrated them by arguments, and freed them from the
objections of the most learned and skilful anatomists, I at
length yield to the requests, I might say entreaties, of many,
and here present them for general consideration in this treatise.
Were not the work indeed presented through you, my learned
friends, I should scarce hope that it could come out scatheless
and complete; for you have in general been the faithful witnesses
of almost all the instances from which I have either collected
the truth or confuted error. You have seen my dissections, and at
my demonstrations of all that I maintain to be objects of sense,
you have been accustomed to stand by and bear me out with your
testimony. And as this book alone declares the blood to course
and revolve by a new route, very different from the ancient and
beaten pathway trodden for so many ages, and illustrated by such
a host of learned and distinguished men, I was greatly afraid
lest I might be charged with presumption did I lay my work before
the public at home, or send it beyond seas for impression, unless
I had first proposed the subject to you, had confirmed its
conclusions by ocular demonstrations in your presence, had
replied to your doubts and objections, and secured the assent and
support of our distinguished President. For I was most intimately
persuaded, that if I could make good my proposition before you
and our College, illustrious by its numerous body of learned
individuals, I had less to fear from others. I even ventured to
hope that I should have the comfort of finding all that you
granted me in your sheer love of truth, conceded by others who
were philosophers like yourselves. True philosophers, who are
only eager for truth and knowledge, never regard themselves as
already so thoroughly informed, but that they welcome further
information from whomsoever and from wheresoever it may come; nor
are they so narrow-minded as to imagine any of the arts or
sciences transmitted to us by the ancients, in such a state of
forwardness or completeness, that nothing is left for the
ingenuity and industry of others. On the contrary, very many
maintain that all we know is still infinitely less than all that
still remains unknown; nor do philosophers pin their faith to
others' precepts in such wise that they lose their liberty, and
cease to give credence to the conclusions of their proper senses.
Neither do they swear such fealty to their mistress Antiquity,
that they openly, and in sight of all, deny and desert their
friend Truth. But even as they see that the credulous and vain
are disposed at the first blush to accept and believe everything
that is proposed to them, so do they observe that the dull and
unintellectual are indisposed to see what lies before their eyes,
and even deny the light of the noonday sun. They teach us in our
course of philosophy to sedulously avoid the fables of the poets
and the fancies of the vulgar, as the false conclusions of the
sceptics. And then the studious and good and true, never suffer
their minds to be warped by the passions of hatred and envy,
which unfit men duly to weigh the arguments that are advanced in
behalf of truth, or to appreciate the proposition that is even
fairly demonstrated. Neither do they think it unworthy of them to
change their opinion if truth and undoubted demonstration require
them to do so. They do not esteem it discreditable to desert
error, though sanctioned by the highest antiquity, for they know
full well that to err, to be deceived, is human; that many things
are discovered by accident and that many may be learned
indifferently from any quarter, by an old man from a youth, by a
person of understanding from one of inferior capacity.
My dear colleagues, I had no purpose to swell this treatise into
a large volume by quoting the names and writings of anatomists,
or to make a parade of the strength of my memory, the extent of
my reading, and the amount of my pains; because I profess both to
learn and to teach anatomy, not from books but from dissections;
not from the positions of philosophers but from the fabric of
nature; and then because I do not think it right or proper to
strive to take from the ancients any honor that is their due, nor
yet to dispute with the moderns, and enter into controversy with
those who have excelled in anatomy and been my teachers. I would
not charge with wilful falsehood any one who was sincerely
anxious for truth, nor lay it to any one's door as a crime that
he had fallen into error. I avow myself the partisan of truth
alone; and I can indeed say that I have used all my endeavours,
bestowed all my pains on an attempt to produce something that
should be agreeable to the good, profitable to the learned, and
useful to letters.
Farewell, most worthy Doctors, And think kindly of your
Anatomist,
WILLIAM HARVEY.
INTRODUCTION
As we are about to discuss the motion, action, and use of the
heart and arteries, it is imperative on us first to state what
has been thought of these things by others in their writings, and
what has been held by the vulgar and by tradition, in order that
what is true may be confirmed, and what is false set right by
dissection, multiplied experience, and accurate observation.
Almost all anatomists, physicians, and philosophers up to the
present time have supposed, with Galen, that the object of the
pulse was the same as that of respiration, and only differed in
one particular, this being conceived to depend on the animal, the
respiration on the vital faculty; the two, in all other respects,
whether with reference to purpose or to motion, comporting
themselves alike. Whence it is affirmed, as by Hieronymus
Fabricius of Aquapendente, in his book on "Respiration," which
has lately appeared, that as the pulsation of the heart and
arteries does not suffice for the ventilation and refrigeration
of the blood, therefore were the lungs fashioned to surround the
heart. From this it appears that whatever has hitherto been said
upon the systole and diastole, or on the motion of the heart and
arteries, has been said with especial reference to the lungs.
But as the structure and movements of the heart differ from those
of the lungs, and the motions of the arteries from those of the
chest, so it seems likely that other ends and offices will thence
arise, and that the pulsations and uses of the heart, likewise of
the arteries, will differ in many respects from the heavings and
uses of the chest and lungs. For did the arterial pulse and the
respiration serve the same ends; did the arteries in their
diastole take air into their cavities, as commonly stated, and in
their systole emit fuliginous vapours by the same pores of the
flesh and skin; and further, did they, in the time intermediate
between the diastole and the systole, contain air, and at all
times either air or spirits, or fuliginous vapours, what should
then be said to Galen, who wrote a book on purpose to show that
by nature the arteries contained blood, and nothing but blood,
and consequently neither spirits nor air, as may readily be
gathered from the experiments and reasonings contained in the
same book? Now, if the arteries are filled in the diastole with
air then taken into them (a larger quantity of air penetrating
when the pulse is large and full), it must come to pass that if
you plunge into a bath of water or of oil when the pulse is
strong and full, it ought forthwith to become either smaller or
much slower, since the circumambient bath will render it either
difficult or impossible for the air to penetrate. In like manner,
as all the arteries, those that are deep-seated as well as those
that are superficial, are dilated at the same instant and with
the same rapidity, how is it possible that air should penetrate
to the deeper parts as freely and quickly through the skin,
flesh, and other structures, as through the cuticle alone? And
how should the arteries of the foetus draw air into their
cavities through the abdomen of the mother and the body of the
womb? And how should seals, whales, dolphins, and other
cetaceans, and fishes of every description, living in the depths
of the sea, take in and emit air by the diastole and systole of
their arteries through the infinite mass of water? For to say
that they absorb the air that is present in the water, and emit
their fumes into this medium, were to utter something like a
figment. And if the arteries in their systole expel fuliginous
vapours from their cavities through the pores of the flesh and
skin, why not the spirits, which are said to be contained in
those vessels, at the same time, since spirits are much more
subtile than fuliginous vapours or smoke? And if the arteries
take in and cast out air in the systole and diastole, like the
lungs in the process of respiration, why do they not do the same
thing when a wound is made in one of them, as in the operation of
arteriotomy? When the windpipe is divided, it is sufficiently
obvious that the air enters and returns through the wound by two
opposite movements; but when an artery is divided, it is equally
manifest that blood escapes in one continuous stream, and that no
air either enters or issues. If the pulsations of the arteries
fan and refrigerate the several parts of the body as the lungs do
the heart, how comes it, as is commonly said, that the arteries
carry the vital blood into the different parts, abundantly
charged with vital spirits, which cherish the heat of these
parts, sustain them when asleep, and recruit them when exhausted?
How should it happen that, if you tie the arteries, immediately
the parts not only become torpid, and frigid, and look pale, but
at length cease even to be nourished? This, according to Galen,
is because they are deprived of the heat which flowed through all
parts from the heart, as its source; whence it would appear that
the arteries rather carry warmth to the parts than serve for any
fanning or refrigeration. Besides, how can their diastole draw
spirits from the heart to warm the body and its parts, and means
of cooling them from without? Still further, although some affirm
that the lungs, arteries, and heart have all the same offices,
they yet maintain that the heart is the workshop of the spirits,
and that the arteries contain and transmit them; denying,
however, in opposition to the opinion of Columbus, that the lungs
can either make or contain spirits. They then assert, with Galen,
against Erasistratus, that it is the blood, not spirits, which is
contained in the arteries.
These opinions are seen to be so incongruous and mutually
subversive, that every one of them is justly brought under
suspicion. That it is blood and blood alone which is contained in
the arteries is made manifest by the experiment of Galen, by
arteriotomy, and by wounds; for from a single divided artery, as
Galen himself affirms in more than one place, the whole of the
blood may be withdrawn in the course of half an hour or less. The
experiment of Galen alluded to is this: "If you include a portion
of an artery between two ligatures, and slit it open lengthwise
you will find nothing but blood"; and thus he proves that the
arteries contain only blood. And we too may be permitted to
proceed by a like train of reasoning: if we find the same blood
in the arteries as in the veins, after having tied them in the
same way, as I have myself repeatedly ascertained, both in the
dead body and in living animals, we may fairly conclude that the
arteries contain the same blood as the veins, and nothing but the
same blood. Some, whilst they attempt to lessen the difficulty,
affirm that the blood is spirituous and arterious, and virtually
concede that the office of the arteries is to carry blood from
the heart into the whole of the body, and that they are therefore
filled with blood; for spirituous blood is not the less blood on
that account. And no one denies the blood as such, even the
portion of it which flows in the veins, is imbued with spirits.
But if that portion of it which is contained in the arteries be
richer in spirits, it is still to be believed that these spirits
are inseparable from the blood, like those in the veins; that the
blood and spirits constitute one body (like whey and butter in
milk, or heat in hot water), with which the arteries are charged,
and for the distribution of which from the heart they are
provided. This body is nothing else than blood. But if this blood
be said to be drawn from the heart into the arteries by the
diastole of these vessels, it is then assumed that the arteries
by their distension are filled with blood, and not with the
surrounding air, as heretofore; for if they be said also to
become filled with air from the ambient atmosphere, how and when,
I ask, can they receive blood from the heart? If it be answered:
during the systole, I take it to be impossible: the arteries
would then have to fill while they contracted, to fill, and yet
not become distended. But if it be said: during diastole, they
would then, and for two opposite purposes, be receiving both
blood and air, and heat and cold, which is improbable. Further
when it is affirmed that the diastole of the heart and arteries
is simultaneous, and the systole of the two is also concurrent,
there is another incongruity. For how can two bodies mutually
connected, which are simultaneously distended, attract or draw
anything from one another? or being simultaneously contracted,
receive anything from each other? And then it seems impossible
that one body can thus attract another body into itself, so as to
become distended, seeing that to be distended is to be passive,
unless, in the manner of a sponge, which has been previously
compressed by an external force, it is returning to its natural
state. But it is difficult to conceive that there can be anything
of this kind in the arteries. The arteries dilate, because they
are filled like bladders or leathern bottles; they are not filled
because they expand like bellows. This I think easy of
demonstration, and indeed conceive that I have already proved it.
Nevertheless, in that book of Galen headed "Quod Sanguis
continetur in Arterus," he quotes an experiment to prove the
contrary. An artery having been exposed, is opened
longitudinally, and a reed or other pervious tube is inserted
into the vessel through the opening, by which the blood is
prevented from being lost, and the wound is closed. "So long," he
says, "as things are thus arranged, the whole artery will
pulsate; but if you now throw a ligature about the vessel and
tightly compress its wall over the tube, you will no longer see
the artery beating beyond the ligature." I have never performed
this experiment of Galen's nor do I think that it could very well
be performed in the living body, on account of the profuse flow
of blood that would take place from the vessel that was operated
on; neither would the tube effectually close the wound in the
vessel without a ligature; and I cannot doubt but that the blood
would be found to flow out between the tube and the vessel. Still
Galen appears by this experiment to prove both that the pulsative
property extends from the heart by the walls of the arteries, and
that the arteries, whilst they dilate, are filled by that
pulsific force, because they expand like bellows, and do not
dilate as if they are filled like skins, But the contrary is
obvious in arteriotomy and in wounds; for the blood spurting from
the arteries escapes with force, now farther, now not so far,
alternately, or in jets; and the jet always takes place with the
diastole of the artery, never with the systole. By which it
clearly appears that the artery is dilated with the impulse of
the blood; for of itself it would not throw the blood to such a
distance and whilst it was dilating; it ought rather to draw air
into its cavity through the wound, were those things true that
are commonly stated concerning the uses of the arteries. Do not
let the thickness of the arterial tunics impose upon us, and lead
us to conclude that the pulsative property proceeds along them
from the heart For in several animals the arteries do not
apparently differ from the veins; and in extreme parts of the
body where the arteries are minutely subdivided, as in the brain,
the hand, etc., no one could distinguish the arteries from the
veins by the dissimilar characters of their coats: the tunics of
both are identical. And then, in the aneurism proceeding from a
wounded or eroded artery, the pulsation is precisely the same as
in the other arteries, and yet it has no proper arterial
covering. To this the learned Riolanus testifies along with me,
in his Seventh Book.
Nor let any one imagine that the uses of the pulse and the
respiration are the same, because, under the influences of the
same causes, such as running, anger, the warm bath, or any other
heating thing, as Galen says, they become more frequent and
forcible together. For not only is experience in opposition to
this idea, though Galen endeavours to explain it away, when we
see that with excessive repletion the pulse beats more forcibly,
whilst the respiration is diminished in amount;, but in young
persons the pulse is quick, whilst respiration is slow. So it is
also in alarm, and amidst care, and under anxiety of mind;
sometimes, too, in fevers, the pulse is rapid, but the
respiration is slower than usual.
These and other objections of the same kind may be urged against
the opinions mentioned. Nor are the views that are entertained of
the offices and pulse of the heart, perhaps, less bound up with
great and most inextricable difficulties. The heart, it is
vulgarly said, is the fountain and workshop of the vital spirits,
the centre from which life is dispensed to the several parts of
the body. Yet it is denied that the right ventricle makes
spirits, which is rather held to supply nourishment to the lungs.
For these reasons it is maintained that fishes are without any
right ventricle (and indeed every animal wants a right ventricle
which is unfurnished with lungs), and that the right ventricle is
present solely for the sake of the lungs.
1. Why, I ask, when we see that the structure of both ventricles
is almost identical, there being the same apparatus of fibres,
and braces, and valves, and vessels, and auricles, and both in
the same way in our dissections are found to be filled up with
blood similarly black in colour, and coagulated--why, I say,
should their uses be imagined to be different, when the action,
motion, and pulse of both are the same? If the three tricuspid
valves placed at the entrance into the right ventricle prove
obstacles to the reflux of the blood into the vena cava, and if
the three semilunar valves which are situated at the commencement
of the pulmonary artery be there, that they may prevent the
return of the blood into the ventricle; why, when we find similar
structures in connexion with the left ventricle, should we deny
that they are there for the same end, of preventing here the
egress, there the regurgitation, of the blood?
2. And, when we have these structures, in points of size, form,
and situation, almost in every respect the same in the left as in
the right ventricle, why should it be said that things are
arranged in the former for the egress and regress of spirits, and
in the latter or right ventricle, for the blood? The same
arrangement cannot be held fitted to favour or impede the motion
of the blood and of spirits indifferently.
3. And when we observe that the passages and vessels are
severally in relation to one another in point of size, viz., the
pulmonary artery to the pulmonary veins; why should the one be
destined to a private purpose, that of furnishing the lungs, the
other to a public function?
4. And as Realdus Columbus says, is it probable that such a
quantity of blood should be required for the nutrition of the
lungs; the vessel that leads to them, the vena arteriosa or
pulmonary artery being of greater capacity than both the iliac
veins?
5. And I ask, as the lungs are so close at hand, and in continual
motion, and the vessel that supplies them is of such dimensions,
what is the use or meaning of this pulse of the right ventricle?
and why was nature reduced to the necessity of adding another
ventricle for the sole purpose of nourishing the lungs?
When it is said that the left ventricle draws materials for the
formation of spirits, air and blood, from the lungs and right
sinuses of the heart, and in like manner sends spirituous blood
into the aorta, drawing fuliginous vapours from there, and
sending them by the pulmonary vein into the lungs, whence spirits
are at the same time obtained for transmission into the aorta, I
ask how, and by what means is the separation effected? And how
comes it that spirits and fuliginous vapours can pass hither and
thither without admixture or confusion? If the mitral cuspidate
valves do not prevent the egress of fuliginous vapours to the
lungs, how should they oppose the escape of air? And how should
the semiluftars hinder the regress of spirits from the aorta upon
each supervening diastole of the heart? Above all, how can they
say that the spirituous blood is sent from the pulmonary veins by
the left ventricle into the lungs without any obstacle to its
passage from the mitral valves, when they have previously
asserted that the air entered by the same vessel from the lungs
into the left ventricle, and have brought forward these same
mitral valves as obstacles to its retrogression? Good God! how
should the mitral valves prevent the regurgitation of air and not
of blood?
Moreover, when they appoint the pulmonary artery, a vessel of
great size, with the coverings of an artery, to none but a kind
of private and single purpose, that, namely, of nourishing the
lungs, why should the pulmonary vein, which is scarcely so large,
which has the coats of a vein, and is soft and lax, be presumed
to be made for many--three or four different--uses? For they will
have it that air passes through this vessel from the lungs into
the left ventricle; that fuliginous vapours escape by it from the
heart into the lungs; and that a portion of the spirituous blood
is distributed to the lungs for their refreshment.
If they will have it that fumes and air--fumes flowing from, air
proceeding towards the heart--are transmitted by the same
conduit, I reply, that nature is not wont to construct but one
vessel, to contrive but one way for such contrary motions and
purposes, nor is anything of the kind seen elsewhere.
If fumes or fuliginous vapours and air permeate this vessel, as
they do the pulmonary bronchia, wherefore do we find neither air
nor fuliginous vapours when we divide the pulmonary vein? Why do
we always find this vessel full of sluggish blood, never of air,
whilst in the lungs we find abundance of air remaining?
If any one will perform Galen's experiment of dividing the
trachea of a living dog, forcibly distending the lungs with a
pair of bellows, and then tying the trachea securely, he will
find, when he has laid open the thorax, abundance of air in the
lungs, even to their extreme investing tunic, but none in either
the pulmonary veins or the left ventricle of the heart. But did
the heart either attract air from the lungs, or did the lungs
transmit any air to the heart, in the living dog, much more ought
this to be the case in the experiment just referred to. Who,
indeed, doubts that, did he inflate the lungs of a subject in the
dissecting--room, he would instantly see the air making its way
by this route, were there actually any such passage for it? But
this office of the pulmonary veins, namely, the ransference of
air from the lungs of the heart, is held of such importance, that
Hieronymus Fabricius of Aquapendente, contends that the lungs
were made for the sake of this vessel, and that it constitutes
the principal element in their structure. But I should like to be
informed why, if the pulmonary vein were destined for the
conveyance of air, it has the structure of a blood--vessel here.
Nature had rather need of annular tubes, such as those of the
bronchi in order that they might always remain open, and not be
liable to collapse; and that they might continue entirely free
from blood, lest the liquid should interfere with the passage of
the air, as it so obviously does when the lungs labour from being
either greatly oppressed or loaded in a less degree with phlegm,
as they are when the breathing is performed with a sibilous or
rattling noise.
Still less is that opinion to be tolerated which, as a two-fold
material, one aerial, one sanguineous, is required for the
composition of vital spirits, supposes the blood to ooze through
the septum of the heart from the right to the left ventricle by
certain hidden porosities, and the air to be attracted from the
lungs through the great vessel, the pulmonary vein; and which,
consequently, will have it, that there are numerous porosities in
the septum of the heart adapted for the transmission of the
blood. But by Hercules! no such pores can be demonstrated, nor in
fact do any such exist. For the septum of the heart is of a
denser and more compact structure than any portion of the body,
except the bones and sinews. But even supposing that there were
foramina or pores in this situation, how could one of the
ventricles extract anything from the other--the left, e.g.,
obtain blood from the right, when we see that both ventricles
contract and dilate simultaneously? Why should we not rather
believe that the right took spirits from the left, than that the
left obtained blood from the right ventricle through these
foramina? But it is certainly mysterious and incongruous that
blood should be supposed to be most commodiously drawn through a
set of obscure or invisible ducts, and air through perfectly open
passages, at one and the same moment. And why, I ask, is recourse
had to secret and invisible porosities, to uncertain and obscure
channels, to explain the passage of the blood into the left
ventricle, when there is so open a way through the pulmonary
veins? I own it has always appeared extraordinary to me that they
should have chosen to make, or rather to imagine, a way through
the thick, hard, dense, and most compact septum of the heart,
rather than take that by the open pulmonary vein, or even through
the lax, soft and spongy substance of the lungs at large.
Besides, if the blood could permeate the substance of the septum,
or could be imbibed from the ventricles, what use were there for
the coronary artery and vain, branches of which proceed to the
septum itself, to supply it with nourishment? And what is
especially worthy of notice is this: if in the foetus, where
everything is more lax and soft, nature saw herself reduced to
the necessity of bringing the blood from the right to the left
side of the heart by the foramen ovale, from the vena cava
through the pulmonary vein, how should it be likely that in the
adult she should pass it so commodiously, and without an effort
through the septum of the ventricles which has now become denser
by age?
Andreas Laurentius, [Footnote: Lib. ix, cap. xi, quest. 12.]
resting on the authority of Galen [Footnote: De Locis Affectia.
lib. vi, cap. 7.] and the experience of Hollerius, asserts and
proves that the serum and pus in empyema, absorbed from the
cavities of the chest into the pulmonary vein may be expelled and
got rid of with the urine and feces through the left ventricle of
the heart and arteries. He quotes the case of a certain person
affected with melancholia, and who suffered from repeated
fainting fits, who was relieved from the paroxysms on passing a
quantity of turbid, fetid and acrid urine. But he died at last,
worn out by disease; and when the body came to be opened after
death, no fluid like that he had micturated was discovered either
in the bladder or the kidneys; but in the left ventricle of the
heart and cavity of the thorax plenty of it was met with. And
then Laurentius boasts that he had predicted the cause of the
symptoms. For my own part, however, I cannot but wonder, since he
had divined and predicted that heterogeneous matter could be
discharged by the course he indicates, why he could not or would
not perceive, and inform us that, in the natural state of things,
the blood might be commodiously transferred from the lungs to the
left ventricle of the heart by the very same route.
Since, therefore, from the foregoing considerations and many
others to the same effect, it is plain that what has heretofore
been said concerning the motion and function of the heart and
arteries must appear obscure, inconsistent, or even impossible to
him who carefully considers the entire subject, it would be
proper to look more narrowly into the matter to contemplate the
motion of the heart and arteries, not only in man, but in all
animals that have hearts; and also, by frequent appeals to
vivisection, and much ocular inspection, to investigate and
discern the truth.
ON THE MOTION OF THE HEART AND BLOOD IN ANIMALS
CHAPTER I
THE AUTHOR'S MOTIVES FOR WRITING
When I first gave my mind to vivisections, as a means of
discovering the motions and uses of the heart, and sought to
discover these from actual inspection, and not from the writings
of others, I found the task so truly arduous, so full of
difficulties, that I was almost tempted to think, with
Fracastorius, that the motion of the heart was only to be
comprehended by God. For I could neither rightly perceive at
first when the systole and when the diastole took place, nor when
and where dilatation and contraction occurred, by reason of the
rapidity of the motion, which in many animals is accomplished in
the twinkling of an eye, coming and going like a flash of
lightning; so that the systole presented itself to me now from
this point, now from that; the diastole the same; and then
everything was reversed, the motions occurring, as it seemed,
variously and confusedly together. My mind was therefore greatly
unsettled nor did I know what I should myself conclude, nor what
believe from others. I was not surprised that Andreas Laurentius
should have written that the motion of the heart was as
perplexing as the flux and reflux of Euripus had appeared to
Aristotle.
At length, by using greater and daily diligence and
investigation, making frequent inspection of many and various
animals, and collating numerous observations, I thought that I
had attained to the truth, that I should extricate myself and
escape from this labyrinth, and that I had discovered what I so
much desired, both the motion and the use of the heart and
arteries. From that time I have not hesitated to expose my views
upon these subjects, not only in private to my friends, but also
in public, in my anatomical lectures, after the manner of the
Academy of old.
These views as usual, pleased some more, others less; some chid
and calumniated me, and laid it to me as a crime that I had dared
to depart from the precepts and opinions of all anatomists;
others desired further explanations of the novelties, which they
said were both worthy of consideration, and might perchance be
found of signal use. At length, yielding to the requests of my
friends, that all might be made participators in my labors, and
partly moved by the envy of others, who, receiving my views with
uncandid minds and understanding them indifferently, have essayed
to traduce me publicly, I have moved to commit these things to
the press, in order that all may be enabled to form an opinion
both of me and my labours. This step I take all the more
willingly, seeing that Hieronymus Fabricius of Aquapendente,
although he has accurately and learnedly delineated almost every
one of the several parts of animals in a special work, has left
the heart alone untouched. Finally, if any use or benefit to this
department of the republic of letters should accrue from my
labours, it will, perhaps, be allowed that I have not lived idly,
and as the old man in the comedy says:
For never yet hath any one attained
To such perfection, but that time, and place,
And use, have brought addition to his knowledge;
Or made correction, or admonished him,
That he was ignorant of much which he
Had thought he knew; or led him to reject
What he had once esteemed of highest price.
So will it, perchance, be found with reference to the heart at
this time; or others, at least, starting hence, with the way
pointed out to them, advancing under the guidance of a happier
genius, may make occasion to proceed more fortunately, and to
inquire more accurately.