Equipment, first used by the french surgeon Ambroise Pare (1510-1590), for the performing of the golden ligature or Punctus aureus. A is a crooked needle with an eye near the point, threaded with the golden wire, BB. C are the pincers, or mullets, fitted with a spring, D; the mullets were used to trim the ends of the wire together. Ligature is the tying off of a vessel thus preventing bleeding. Contempory surgeons used to cauterise the arteries (burn with a hot iron without anaesthetic). Pare is also remembered for his discovery that dressing a gunshot wound had more effect than disinfecting it with boiling oil.