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Treatment of burns with onions and comparison with another treatment; observations made between October 1537 and the end of 1538
Ambroise Paré, Oeuvres 1575, p 359
…. as for burns caused by gunpowder, I have never found anything special that distinguishes their treatment from that of other burns.
I then told him [Sylvius]1 this story about a kitchen boy of monsieur le Marshal de Montejan who fell into a cauldron of almost boiling oil. When this happened I was sent for and at once went to ask an apothecary for the refrigerant medicines that one was accustomed to apply to burns. A good old village woman, hearing that I was speaking of this burn, advised me to apply, for the first dressing, (for fear that pustules or blisters would result), raw onions crushed with a little salt; I asked the old woman if she had used this in the past and she answered, in her dialect, ‘Yes, sir, by God’s faith’. Then I was agreeable to trying the experiment on this kitchen scullion; and, truly, the next day, the places where the onions had been had no blisters or pustules, and where they had not been all was blistered.
Some time later a German of the guard of the said seigneur de Montejan was very drunk and his flask2 caught fire and caused great damage to his hands and face, and I was called to dress him. I applied onions to one half of his face and the usual remedies to the other. At the second dressing I found the side where I had applied the onions to have no blisters nor scarring and the other side to be all blistered; and so I planned to write about the effects of these onions.
Comparison of two treatments of gunshot wounds;
observations made between October 1537 and the end of 1538
Ambroise Paré, Oeuvres 1575 p 358 line 7ff;
Now, at that time I was very inexperienced because I had not yet seen the treatment of wounds made by the arquebus; it is true that I had read in the first book of Jean de Vigo3 about wounds in general, chapter 8, that wounds made by firearms are poisoned because of the powder and for their cure he commands that they be cauterized with oil of elderberry to which a little treacle4 should be added. Not to fail in the use of this burning oil and knowing that such treatment could be extremely painful for the wounded, I wanted to know before I used it how the other surgeons carried out the first dressing; this they did by applying the said oil as nearly boiling as possible to the wounds using tents and setons5 so I plucked up courage to do likewise.
At last I ran out of oil and was constrained to apply a digestive6 made of egg yolk, oil of roses and turpentine. That night I could not sleep easily thinking that by the default in cautery I would find the wounded to whom I had failed to apply the said oil dead of poisoning; and this made me get up at first light to visit them. Beyond my hopes I found those on whom I had put the digestive dressing feeling little pain from their wounds which were not swollen or inflamed, and having spent quite a restful night. But the others, to whom the said oil had been applied, I found fevered, with great pain and swelling around their wounds.
From then I resolved never again so cruelly to burn poor men wounded with arquebus shot.
References
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Paré is recounting a conversation with the Galenic physician Sylvius (Jacques Dubois) about gunshot wounds after his return to Paris from the Turin campaign. See Commentary.
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His powder flask.
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i.e the first book on wounds of Giovanni da Vigo’s Compendiosa; see Commentary.
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theriac theriac or treacle was believed to be a powerful antidote against venom.
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tentes et cetons threads and woollen pledgets to hold the wounds open.
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digestif a dressing intended to bring a wound to suppuration. The mixture of egg yolk, oil of roses and turpentine used by Paré is that recommended by Vigo for use after cauterization of the wound; see Commentary.