John Charles Robb (–)

John Charles Robb (–) President of the Ulster Medical Society 1952–53 Presidential Opening Address Ulster Medical Society BARON LARREY (1766-1842): NAPOLEON’S CHIEF SURGEON AND HIS TIMES Dominique Jean Larrey, Baron of the Empire, Commander of the Legion of Honour, Inspector-General of the Medical Staff of the French Armies, Chief Surgeon of the Grand Army, and First Surgeon of the Imperial Guard, was born in 1766, three years before Napoleon Bonoparte, whose loving follower Larrey was destined to become. His birthplace was in the romantic region of the High Pyrenees, at the village of Beaudeau. At the period of Larrey’s birth, centuries of misrule were about to culminate in a mighty catastrophe for France. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, France was the most powerful nation in Europe. Under Louis XIV, she had threatened to dominate the whole Continent, but her advance had been checked largely by the genius of price. The King had a monopoly of this commodity Marlborough. From twenty years of aggression her and each year some ten thousand of the peasantry finances had never recovered. Though with her virile, were imprisoned, two thousand condemned to the ingenious people, France’s capacity to recover galleys, and several hundred executed for offences financial equilibrium seemed self-evident, her every against the salt laws alone. effort to do so failed. The blame was laid at the door As has been said, “At this time there were trees of the aristocrats, whose privileges alone seemed to growing in the forest, out of which the frame of the stand between the nation and a happier future. guillotine was to be made.” It must have been evident All power was centred in the throne, and the once to all thoughtful minds in 1766, that Jean Jaques turbulent nobles of France lived lives of dissipation Rousseau spoke the truth when he said, “This is an around the palace of Versailles. Increased privilege age of revolutions.” was the price which the sovereigns of France had paid Larrey, like many great men, was born poor. His the Nobility for the loss of ancient powers — privilege, parents were too poverty- stricken to pay for his not to do but to receive. Everything went by favour education; and what instruction he got was obtained and not by merit; the nobles thronged Versailles, gratuitously from the Abbé de Grasset, a good and leaving their estates in utter neglect and ruin, and kindly churchman, who had originally become permitting their peasants to starve and rot. The interested in the boy, because he possessed a good people, in the words of Macauley, were “beasts of voice and sang in the choir. When Larrey was thirteen burden, and were soon to become beasts of prey.” years of age his father died, and the son went to In these times the French peasant had to work for Toulouse to live with his uncle, Alexis Larrey, Chief his lord two or three days in each week, he had to pay Surgeon to a large hospital in that city. Larrey a proportion of his produce to the Church; and finally attended the hospital, and at 15 was appointed there were the King’s Taxes, the Land Tax, the Poll dresser, and after that House Surgeon. In 1787, at the Tax, and certain indirect taxes, such as the tax on salt, age of 21, furnished with letters of introduction, he which the peasants were forced to buy at a large started to walk to Paris, alongside a slow-moving 1 John Charles Robb wagon. Larrey was a typical southern Frenchman, chief enemies of the revolution appeared to the short, round- headed, stoutly built, a first-rate Assembly, which was then governing France, to be marcher, impervious to fatigue. Leopold the Austrian Emperor, brother of Marie Soon after reaching Paris, he took a public Antoinette. Nothing was more likely to make the examination, and obtained an appointment as position of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette impossible Auxiliary Surgeon in the navy. He walked to the great than a foreign war against this brother of the Queen. naval station at Brest, underwent another Pretexts for a war were not lacking. Leopold could examination, and was assigned to the “Vigilante.” As complain of French encouragement to a revolution in the ship was not to sail for some months, Larrey Belgium, which was then part of the Austrian passed the time in lecturing to students in anatomy Netherlands, and Marie Antoinette, then a prisoner of and surgery, an instance of that fiery activity that the revolution in the Tuilleries, was entreating her possessed him all his life. The newly-appointed brother Leopold to summon a European Congress to Surgeon sailed from Brest to Newfoundland in April, deal with the French revolution. Leopold, in 1788, and was gone six months on his trip. conjunction with the King of Prussia, issued a Sea-sickness early convinced Larrey that any talents declaration which seemed to threaten France with he might possess would be more easily developed the combined action of the European powers, if Louis elsewhere than in the navy, and upon his return in was not accorded the treatment which his status October of the same year he arranged to retire from deserved. Marie Antoinette saw in an unsuccessful active service. The voyage was not without many defence against foreign invasion, the one chance for interesting happenings, none of which escaped his the salvation of her husband’s crown. restless curiosity. In his notes he discusses Leopold unexpectedly died and his successor sea-sickness, frost-bite, the Eskimos, plumage of Francis, young, vigorous and carefree, was prompt to birds in the Arctic zone, mosquito-bites, and, like him, take up the challenge of the Revolutionaries. Though we also wonder as to the fruits of the ill-mated love the French Army was disorganized, and Austria and affair between a cow and a caribou that forced its way Prussia were leagued against them, the French were into the fold! Larrey reached Brest on his return confident of victory, and Louis XVI was compelled to journey in October, 1788, and was glad to set foot on declare war in May, 1792. The result was what might land. For several days all hands were suffering from be expected. The first hostile exchanges were want of provisions; “there remained only a little sufficient to show that the revolution had no army brandy, and a cow-in-calf, very thin.” upon which it could rely for the defence of the Soon afterwards he proceeded to Paris and was country. there at the beginning of the memorable winter of It was during this period of uncertainty, when the 1789. He worked at the Hotel Dieu, under the orders old Army had proved itself incompetent, and before of the celebrated Surgeon Desault. It was at this the new volunteers of the revolution had proven their hospital, and at the Hotel Royal des Invalides, that worth that the fate of the monarchy was decided. Larrey acquired knowledge sufficient to enable him to How, it was asked, could the war be made to succeed serve with credit three years later in the Army of the whilst Louis and his wife, friends of the enemy so it Rhine. A hospital colleague of Desault at this time was was believed, were giving secret encouragement to Chopart, still remembered in these days for his ampu- the invader. Eventually, after many vicissitudes, and tation at the mid-tarsal joint. At the Invalides, Larrey due largely to Danton and the Marseilles revolu- saw Sabatier at work. This surgeon is the man who tionaries, the Austrians were defeated in November, advocated suturing a divided intestine over a cylinder 1792, with Austrian Belgium as a desirable made of a playing card. Desault is particularly acquisition. As it was a settled policy of Britain never remembered for his circular amputation of three willingly to acquiesce in the annexation of Belgium by incisions, a cone being thus made, the apex of which a great continental power, Britain was drawn into the is the divided bone. At the height of his fame six fight by France declaring war in February, 1793 — a hundred pupils attended his clinics. war which lasted twenty-two years with a short In digression, I may be permitted to make a short interval until the defeat of the French at Waterloo in résumé of the political situation in France, which led 1815. up to Larrey’s first military experience — the It was during this campaign of the Rhine that Campaign of the Rhine in 1792. Larrey, painfully impressed by the utter lack of system In the atmosphere of angry suspicion which in caring for the wounded, conceived the idea of prevailed in Paris after the 1789 revolution, one of the organized effort on military lines to give immediate 2 John Charles Robb and adequate succour to the victims of battles. were an arm which he had lost he could walk off back Usually the wounded remained where they fell until towards France, or if it were a leg he could be put on fighting was over, rarely receiving surgeons’ attention a horse and ride stage by stage on the way home. In until twenty-four hours had passed. In cases of defeat spite of moving about, Larrey’s cases escaped they were abandoned. Larrey decided the surgeon secondary haemorrhage. ought to go to the wounded, and that aid must be a A factor in his success was that the wounded matter of routine and administered with the same came under him directly after the injury, because he status as any other military measure.

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