1536

After a battle, Paré ran out of oil [for cauterizing wounds,] “and so concocted instead an ointment from egg yolk, oil of roses, and turpentine, which he administered cold. The following day, the patients who had received this soothing balm were in far better shape than those cauterized with oil.” Paré also used ligatures to improve patients’ chances of surviving amputation (Ball, 73; cf. Rutkow, who clarifies that the cauterizing was done “with red-hot irons, then flood the area with a gummous-like mixture of boiling oil and herbs. . . cauldrons of scalding-hot oil of elders mixed with treacle, a molasses-like liquid, were always at the ready” [69]).