#Larrey did a lot of other stuff that I didn't mention; otherwise I'd just be vomiting the wikipedia page

[aquitainequeen]

Ridley Scott: I made a film about two rival officers constantly duelling throughout and in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, and now I've actually done a film about Napoleon!

Me: Great! Could you also do a film about Baron Dominique Jean Larrey, a vital innovator in European battlefield surgery and triage, often considered the first military surgeon; who pioneered the ambulance volantes ("Flying ambulances") to quickly transport wounded men from the battlefield, effectively creating a forerunner of the modern MASH units; co-led the team that performed one of the first accurately recorded pre-anaesthetic mastectomies in Western medicine; was spotted helping wounded men while under heavy fire during the Battle of Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington who purposefully ordered for his soldiers not to fire in Larrey's direction; and when captured by the Prussians after the battle was about to be executed on the spot when he was recognised by one of the German surgeons, who pled for his life because he had saved the life of Field Marshall Blücher's son some years earlier?

Ridley Scott:

Ridley Scott: Um.

Me: Yeah. Didn't think so.

[aquitainequeen]

Larrey did a lot of other stuff that I didn't mention at first; otherwise I'd just be vomiting the wikipedia page:

He was a close favourite of Napoleon and went on the Egyptian campaign

He started a school in Cairo where he researched opthalmy (inflammation of the eye)

He made sure that all soldiers (not just French and their allies) were treated

The mastectomy was to treat suspected breast cancer

(unknown to this day if there actually was cancer but perhaps better safe than sorry)

and the patient was Frances Burney, who frankly deserves a film or tv series of her own

If you're up for it she wrote her own description of what the operation was like (because, again, pre-anaesthetic) which is there to read on her wikipedia page

Whether or not her breast WAS cancerous she lived another thirty years

Ironically her husband DID die of cancer

anyway

jazz hands

Ridley Scott: I made a film about two rival officers constantly duelling throughout and in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, and now I've actually done a film about Napoleon!

Me: Great! Could you also do a film about Baron Dominique Jean Larrey, a vital innovator in European battlefield surgery and triage, often considered the first military surgeon; who pioneered the ambulance volantes ("Flying ambulances") to quickly transport wounded men from the battlefield, effectively creating a forerunner of the modern MASH units; co-led the team that performed one of the first accurately recorded pre-anaesthetic mastectomies in Western medicine; was spotted helping wounded men while under heavy fire during the Battle of Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington who purposefully ordered for his soldiers not to fire in Larrey's direction; and when captured by the Prussians after the battle was about to be executed on the spot when he was recognised by one of the German surgeons, who pled for his life because he had saved the life of Field Marshall Blücher's son some years earlier?

Ridley Scott:

Ridley Scott: Um.

Me: Yeah. Didn't think so.