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THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 189

did not enjox' an\- ot those advantages deriving from a good lire iar\ t-duoa-
tion, and after having received some instruction from a chaplain, w liose
disciple and servant he was at one and the same time, he was hound
over as apprentice to a barber, who also taught him the art of bleeding.
Toward the age of sixteen we find him in Paris in the employ of a
chiriirgieti-barhicr. After this he practised minor surgery for some years
in the Hotel-Dieu. But having undertaken the study of surger\' without
literary preparation and without an\- knowledge of Latin, he was obliged,
especially for the latter reason, to contend with great difficulties, so that,
although he had acquired in a few \ears sufficient practice in surgery to
enable him to pass from the Hotel-Dieu to the sanitary service of the
French army, it was only in 1554, that is, at thirty-seven years of age,
that he was permitted to take the examination required for becoming
a member of the College of Surgeons of Paris. Within the short space
of five months he was successively named Bachelor, Licentiate, and
Doctor in Surgery. His reputation, which had already become extraor-
dinary even before he had any academic degree, procured him introduc-
tion to the Court of France as surgeon in ordinary. In 1562 he became
chief surgeon to the Court and occupied this post under the reigns of
Charles IX and Henri III. Ambroise Pare was a Protestant, and it
is said that in the massacre of St. Bartholomew's night, he owed his
escape to the king, Charles IX, who, to save his life, hid him in his ward-
robe. He died full of honors, in the year 1592.
In his works this great surgeon treats the subject of dental maladies
and their cure very thoroughly; this may be in part attributed to the cir-
cumstance of his having first been simply a barber (and, therefore, also a
tooth-puller) and afterward a surgeon-barber, which placed him in very
favorable conditions for acquiring vast experience in the practice of
dentistry.
In Chapter II, Book IV, of his works, ^ Ambroise Pare speaks of the
anatomy and physiology of the teeth. It must, however, be confessed
that Vesalius and, still more so, Eustachius treat of dental anatom\- with
much more exactness than he does.
After having spoken of the incisors and the canines, he says that the
ten upper molars generally have three roots, and very often four, whilst
the ten lower ones have only three; this is because the lower jaw is harder
than the upper, and also because the lower molars, estant assises sur la
racine, et nou suspendiies, comme celles de la niandibule d' en liaiit, n'avoietit
besoin de taut de racnies pour leiir stabilttr asseurance.'
' (Euvres completes d'Ambroise Pare, accompagnees de notes liistoiiqiies et critiques, par
J. F. Malgaigne, Paris, 1840, vol. i, p. 231.
- The lower molars, being seated on the roots and not suspended like those of the upper
jaw, are not in want of so manv roots to assure their stability.