The uneducated son of a country artisan, Ambroise Paré became the greatest surgeon of the sixteenth century. Renowned as much for his compassion as his surgical skill, Paré guided his life with a humble credo of patient care: "I dressed him, God cured him."

Paré was born during an era when physicians considered surgery beneath their dignity; they left all cutting to the "lowly barber-surgeons." He served as an apprentice to a barber in his youth and, at the age of 19, went to Paris where he became a surgical student at the Hôtel Dieu hospital. After attaining the rank of master barber-surgeon in 1536, he joined the army as a regimental surgeon. Over the next 30 years, Paré developed a flourishing surgical practice while continuing to serve occasionally in the army. His medical writings and his fair treatment of soldiers regardless of their rank...