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One October night in 1537, an army surgeon ran out of the boiling oil he was supposed to pour into gunshot wounds. He improvised with egg yolk, rose oil, and turpentine. Ambroise Paré, surgeon to four French kings, spent fifty years being gentle.
He drafted the first computer in 1837. The government wouldn’t fund it. So he sat in his Marylebone study and logged 165 interruptions by organ-grinders, brass bands, and “the human voice.” Charles Babbage, chronicler of street nuisances.
A starling in a Vienna shop whistled a concerto back at its composer, held a fermata he hadn’t written, and sharpened one G to G#. Mozart bought the bird for 34 Kreuzer, transcribed its version into his household book, and wrote: Das war schön.
