emarkably cool and self-collected. Our author’s eulogist relates a striking contrast between him and a French surgeon of eminence. The latter gentleman, having had
In the latter end of the same year, he was seized with a paralytic stroke, from which in appearance he soon perfectly recovered. The flattering prospect, however, of his continuanc6 in life, soon vanished; for, on the 1 Oth of April, 1752, he was suddenly carried off by a fit of an apoplexy, at Bath, in the sixty -fourth year of his age. He married Deborah Knight, a citizen’s daughter, and, if we mistake not, sister of the famous Robert Knight, cashier to the South-sea company in 1720. By this lady Mr. Cheselden had only one daughter, Wilhelmina Deborah, who was married to Charles Cotes, M. D. of Woodcote, in Shropshire, and member of parliament for Tamworth, in Staffordshire. Dr. Cotes died without issue, on the 2 1st of March, 1748; and Mrs. Cotes, who survived him, died some years since at Greenhithe, in the parish of Swanscombe, in the county of Kent. Mrs. Cheselden died in 1764. Mr. Cheselden’s reputation was great in anatomy, but we apprehend that it was still greater, and more justly founded, in surgery. The eminent surgeon Mr. Sharp, in a dedication to our author, celebrates him as the ornament of his profession; acknowledges his own skill in surgery to have been chiefly derived from him; and represents, that posterity will be ever indebted for the signal services he has done to this branch of the medical art. In surgery he was undoubtedly a great improver, having introduced simplicity into the practice of it, and laid aside the operose and hurtful French instruments which had been formerly in use. Guided by consummate skill, perfectly master of his hand, fruitful in resources, he was prepared for all events, and performed every operation with remarkable dexterity and coolness. Being fully competent to each possible case, he was successful in all. He was at the same time eminently distinguished by his tenderness to his patients. Whenever he entered the hospital on his morning visits, the reflection of what he was unavoidably to perform, impressed him with uneasy sensations; and it is even said that he was generally sick with anxiety before he began an operation, though during the performance of it he was, as hath already been observed, remarkably cool and self-collected. Our author’s eulogist relates a striking contrast between him and a French surgeon of eminence. The latter gentleman, having had his feelings rendered callous by a course of surgical practice, was astonished at the sensibility shewn by Mr. Cheselden previously to his operations, and considered it as a great mark of weakness in his behaviour. Yet the same gentleman, being persuaded to accompany Mr. Cheselden to the fencing-school, who frequently amused himself with it as a spectator, could not bear the sight, and was taken ill. The adventure was the subject of conversation at court, and both were equally praised for goodness of heart; but the principle of humanity appears to have been stronger in Mr. Cheselden, because the feeling of it was not weakened by his long practice.
, a French surgeon of eminence, was born at Laval, in the district
, a French surgeon of eminence, was
born at Laval, in the district of the Maine, in 1509. He
commenced the study of his profession early in life, and
practised it with great zeal both in hospitals and in the army;
and when his reputation was at its height, he was appointed
surgeon in ordinary to king Henry II. in 1552; and he
held the same office under the succeeding kings, Francis II.
Charles IX. and Henry III. To Charles IX. especially
he is said to have on one occasion conferred great professional benefits, when some formidable symptoms had been
produced by the accidental wound of a tendon in venesection, which he speedily removed. His services appear to
have been amply acknowledged by the king; who spared
him in the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew’s, although
a protestant. “Of all those,
”' says the duke of Sully,
<c who were about the person of this prince (Charles IX.)
none possessed so great a share of his confidence as Ambrose Pare“, his surgeon. This man, though a Huguenot,
lived with him in so great a degree of familiarity, that, on
the day of the massacre, Charles telling him, the time was
now come when the whole kingdom would be catholics;
he replied, without being alarmed, * By the light of God,
sire, I cannot believe that you have forgot your promise
never to command me to do four things namely, to enter
into my mother’s womb, to be present in the day of
battie, to quit your service, or to go to mass.‘ The king
soon after took him aside, and disclosed to him freely the
trouble of his soul: * Ambrose,’ said he, * I know not what
has happened to me these two or three days past, but I
feel my mind and body as much at enmity with each other,
as if I was seized with a fever; sleeping or waking, the
murdered Huguenots seem ever present to my eyes, with
ghastly faces, and weltering in blood. I wish the innocent
and helpless had been spared!' The order which was published the following day, forbidding the continuance of the
massacre, was in consequence of this conversation.
” Pare",
after having been long esteemed as the first surgeon of his
time, and beloved for his private virtues, died Dec. 20,
1590, at the age of eighty-one; and as he was buried in
the church of St. Andrew, Eloy would from that circumstance infer that he died a Roman catholic, of which we
have no proof.