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 surgeon—to justify me in reproducing it, in a somewhat condensed form, in the present chapter.

Henry the Second, King of France, while tilting (June 30, 1559) with Gabriel, Count of Montgomery, an officer of that sovereign's Scottish Lifeguard, received injuries which soon afterward proved fatal. Montgomery's lance—so Paré's account states—struck the King's vizor and, breaking off at the spot where the metal tip or head is attached to the wooden shaft, carried away this part of the helmet. Then, impelled by the force which had originally been communicated to the lance, the splintered end of its shaft struck the King's now unprotected head with great violence just above the right eyebrow, tore up the skin and underlying muscular tissue of the forehead as far as the outer angle of the left orbit, and finally destroyed the adjacent eye. Five or six of the most experienced surgeons of France were immediately summoned, and Philip the Second, King of Spain, sent Vesalius from Brussels to aid them in their efforts to save the injured King's life. But all the measures adopted proved of no avail. Henry the Second died on the eleventh day following the injury. Although in the published account no statement is made to the effect that Paré was one of the surgeons who attended the King during his illness, Malgaigne expresses the opinion that he was probably present in the capacity of a consultant; and the interesting comments which he (Paré) makes on the nature and extent of the injury inflicted certainly justify this opinion. No evidence of fracture of the skull was discovered either before death or at the postmortem examination, and the most conspicuous symptoms appear to have been fever and a comatose condition. At the autopsy there was found, on the left side posteriorly, in the occipital region, a clot of blood lying between the pia and the dura mater. The brain substance in the immediate vicinity of the clot was of a yellowish tinge and showed evidences of having already begun to undergo decomposition. Paré's diagnosis, in this case, was that of violent concussion of the brain with rupture of meningeal vessels by contre-coup at a point opposite to that at which the blow