The Nîmes University Hospital, in partnership with MUSE, is organizing Innov’Action Day! Open to all staff members at the hospital, as well as our students in Nîmes, this event will be an opportunity to learn about the field of healthcare innovation. Organized into several workshops, participants will be able to learn the basics of starting a business! Check out the day’s program in this article!
As part of the 800th anniversary of the Faculty of Medicine, in partnership withthe National Academy of Surgery, we will host the Academy of Surgery’s annual conference at our Arnaud de Villeneuve campus.
Members of the National Academy of Surgery will meet to discuss the role of robotics and AI in 21st-century surgery and to explore the future of surgical training. A tribute will be paid to François de Lapeyronie, one of the founding fathers of modern surgery and founder of the Royal Academy of Surgery.
As it does every year, the Faculty is hosting a series of fascinating and informative lectures organized by the Montpellier Society for the History of Medicine. Whether you’re a culture buff or a history enthusiast, these free, themed lectures are just for you! See the program below.
Students at the School of Gerontology, don’t wait to register for CIPEG. This annual conference on gerontology and geriatrics brings together various healthcare professionals working in this field.
The next CIPEG will take place on May 18 and 19, 2022. The School of Gerontology will be represented there by Prof. Claude Jeandel, Myriam Taroudjit, and Marie-Laure Portalez.
Current students and alumni of the Master’s program in Gerontology may contact Myriam TAROUDJIT to register.
As part of the 800th anniversary celebrations of the Faculty of Medicine, in partnership with the Occitanie Center for Ethical Reflection and under the patronage of the National Academy of Medicine, we will host the symposium “Man Facing Science” at our Arnaud de Villeneuve campus.
Health and healthcare are evolving, and ethical and societal questions are emerging.
Topics such as the ethical issues surrounding predictive biotechnologies, innovation in the context of a health crisis, and ethical guidelines for innovation in neuroscience will be addressed at this symposium, organized in partnership with the Occitanie Regional Ethics Center.
Open to everyone (free registration required), this event will welcome members of the Academy of Sciences as well as the National Academy of Medicine, which is sponsoring the event.
To mark the 2021 European Heritage Days, the Faculty of Medicine’s Historic Building and Botanical Garden are opening their doors to the public for guided tours. Due to the current public health situation, tours are available by advance reservation only. Find all the details in this article.
Start your weekend of culture and heritage with a visit to the Jardin des Plantes! On the agenda: explore the garden through various themes, guided by our passionate staff. Take this opportunity to rediscover the exhibition “L’Humain dans son Jardin” through guided tours led by photographer Cédric Matet! Learn more about the exhibition.
Due to the current health situation, tours are available by advance reservation only. You will also need to show your health pass to participate in the tours. To make your reservation, click below!
Meet at the entrance to Boulevard Henri IV (next to the French Red Cross)
The garden opens at 10 a.m.
Please note that only the Jardin des Plantes will be open to visitors as part of the guided tours on Saturday, September 18. The historic building will be open only on Sunday…
After enjoying the garden’s picturesque paths, come back and visit us on Sunday, September 19, to explore the School of Medicine in its historic building. Two unique tour routes, led by the school’s heritage experts, will be available:
Due to the current health situation, tours are available by advance reservation only. You will also need to show your health pass to participate in the tours. To make your reservation, click below!
The SPES (Primary Care, Environment, and Health) program is a training initiative organized by the University Department of General Medicine at the Montpellier-Nîmes School of Medicine and the Avicenne Multidisciplinary University Health Center in Cabestany. A one-day training session for general medicine residents, as well as a public lecture, will take place on September 9, 2021.
It is part of the call for proposals launched by the Occitanie Regional Health Agency (ARS) as part of the 3rd Regional Health and Environment Plan, of which it is one of the winning projects. In particular, it aims to increase awareness of environmental health among citizens and healthcare professionals.
To that end, it is organized in three stages:
Dr. François Carbonnel, an associate professor in the Department of General Medicine at the Montpellier-Nîmes School of Medicine and a general practitioner at the Avicenne Primary Care Center, has been selected as the winner of the call for proposals organized by the Occitanie Regional Health Agency (ARS).
Why did you decide to launch this Primary Care, Environment, and Health training program?
The environment can pose risks to our societies and to our health. This training program helps raise awareness among our colleagues about what environmental health is. We want to educate them about this field, which is still relatively unknown.
What is the purpose of this new training program?
Through this training, future general practitioners will first be able to identify environmental health risks so that they can treat them. Second, they will be able to predict and prevent them.
Who is this training course intended for?
This training program is primarily intended for residents and faculty in general practice. The goal is for this program to become a sustainable and useful resource so that we can offer it on a broader scale and ensure that environmental health issues are addressed across all regions.
The event will consist of two parts: the first part will be dedicated to training residents and faculty in general practice. The second part, open to the general public, will feature a lecture.
Here is the schedule for these two games:
Schedule for the day for interns
Conference Program for the General Public
Please note that this program is subject to change depending on the public health situation.
To help students prepare for their first year in the PASS and LAS programs, the health tutoring associations at the University of Montpellier (Montpellier Health Tutoring Association, Nîmes Health Tutoring, and the Association of Pharmacy Tutors) are organizing a Pre-Semester Workshop to help students adjust to university life and gain a clear understanding of the year ahead.
This workshop provides an opportunity to become familiar with the key topics that will be covered in the first semester, to start finding your own work rhythm, and to gradually immerse yourself in a year of the PASS or LAS program.
As a result, two separate SPRs will be organized:
Registration for the PASS Pre-Semester Workshop will cost €15, which covers the cost of the printed handouts for the presentations. You must first register for the tutoring program; registration is free and open year-round (available here).
This SPR will take place from August 23 to September 4. It will be held in person at the respective locations of the three associations, namely:
Arnaud de Villeneuve Site,
641 Doyen Gaston GIRAUD Avenue
34,090 Montpellier
Carémeau Site,
186 Chemin du Carreau de Lanes
30,900 Nîmes
School of Pharmacy,
15 Charles FLAHAULT Avenue
34,090 Montpellier
The in-person format of this workshop is designed to help students get acquainted with the university environment—not only with one another but also with the tutors they will interact with throughout the year.
Here is the registration link:
This SPR will take place on August 30 and 31. To ensure equal opportunities for students from different schools, it will be held online via the Zoom platform.
Here is the link to register (the LAS Pre-School Year Camp is the same for all three locations):
Julie Bay, a first-year orthoptics student, will be leaving for a humanitarian mission in Kenya from October 30 to November 14, 2021. The goal of this mission is to provide free vision screenings for children in schools in Taïta.
Eye Need View is a nonprofit organization established in 2014 by three orthoptists under the French Law of 1901. Its mission is to organize visual screening and refraction campaigns, as well as training programs in the field of eye health, in developing countries.
For the first time, Eye Need View is calling on visual health students to help carry out its next humanitarian mission in Kenya. Five students from the fourteen orthoptics departments across France are participating in this project.
And this year, a first-year orthoptics student at the Montpellier-Nîmes School of Medicine was selected for this assignment. She was recruited after submitting her resume and cover letter, and she will represent the School and the University of Montpellier throughout this assignment. We had the opportunity to meet her:
Hi Julie, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Julie Bay, I’m 29 years old, and I’m originally from Réunion Island. After earning my BTS in Optometry and gaining several years of professional experience in that field, I decided to change careers and become an orthoptist. I am currently a student at the Montpellier-Nîmes School of Medicine.
How did you hear about the Eye Need View project?
I have always been very interested in the field of vision health and humanitarian work, so I regularly kept up with the latest news on these topics. One day, I saw the call for proposals from the FFEO (French Federation of Orthoptics Students) regarding the Eye Need View mission, and I decided to apply because this project perfectly matched my expectations.
Why did you want to take part in this humanitarian mission?
First of all, humanitarian work has always appealed to me; I’ve always been committed to using my skills to help others. The people around me have always encouraged me to get involved in charitable causes. Even back in Réunion, I was part of an organization—along with my family—that helped disadvantaged people. What’s great about this project is that it allows me to combine my work with my desire to help others. I’ve already carried out humanitarian screening missions in Paris with Vision For Life for underprivileged people. This helps me grow both personally and professionally.
It’s not always widely known, but 10% of children have a vision problem by age 6 and are not receiving treatment. Vision problems have a significant impact on children, particularly when it comes to learning. That’s why this mission is so important to me.
How did you finance your humanitarian mission?
The cost of the trip is estimated at €9,000 for all participating students. We received €6,000 in support from our partners. I also received funding from the University of Montpellier’s Solidarity and Student Initiative Development Fund (FSDIE), which aims to help students with projects in various fields.
Finally, we're going to set up an online fundraiser to raise the remaining funds we need.
The goal during the two-week mission is to screen 2,500 children in schools in the village of Taïta, in southern Kenya. To make this possible, the mission is divided into several stages:
The Eye Need View organization and the students participating in this humanitarian project are committed to making this mission a success. You can support them in two different ways:
As part of the 800th-anniversary celebrations, a photography exhibition will take place from July 10 to October 10. Curated by renowned photographer CédricMATET, it will be held at the Jardin des Plantes. In 2020, this photographer also curated the exhibition “Behind the Masks,” whichfeatures200 portraits of medical personnel.
The title of the exhibition is fundamentally linked to itscontent. In fact, for this exhibition, the artist chose to work with anatomical specimens from the Faculty’s anatomy museum. To better understand his project, we interviewed the photographer.
What is your background?
I’m originally fromSète. I attended a design school in Montpellier that is now called ESMA. After that, I enrolled at the Gobelins School of Visual Arts in Paris. Later, I went back to school to earn a master’s degree in Urban Planning and Sustainable Development because I’m interested in cities. In the meantime, I’ve been working in art direction and design at various communications agencies.
What interests me is connecting art to the city, to maps, to cartography, and to people. In my view, an artist must be rooted in their context: urban, political, and human.
Can you tell us about the “Behind the Masks” project?
It was GéraldCHANQUES, a professor at the faculty and a doctor atSaint EloiHospital, who contacted me and proposed this project. I wanted to convey a vision ofwhat healthcare providers and their commitments can be.
How would you describe yourself?
If I had to define myself and my work, I would talk abouttransdisciplinarity. I am a photographer, but I’m also a visual artist; I enjoy working with a variety of materials and collaborating with people from different fields.
Can you tell us about your new exhibition, “Man in His Garden”?
It’s been an idea of mine for quite some time to explore the Jardin des Plantes, but I have a real passion for the anatomy museum, which I visited when I was a student. Being able to talk about botany through the garden, but also about humanity and research on the human body—I think that’s fabulous. The project was a collaboration between the two of us, once again with ProfessorCHANQUES.
This project is interesting becauseit takes me out of my comfort zone;I usuallytake portraits, but that’s not the case here.
Furthermore, since all the rooms are designated as historic landmarks, I have a special relationship with the curator. She’s the third subject of this project—I can’t work without her. Usually, I direct my model,but here I can’t because of the piece’s fragility—every movement must be carried out by the curator.
It’sinteresting becausethe artwork and the garden exist independently of me.
There are three of us working on this project: Jane, who creates digital art and is a videographer; Luc, who does motion design, among other things; and me, who works with visuals and handles the artistic direction for the whole project. None of us knows what the final result will be.
How did you choose the anatomical structures?
I first sought advice from ProfessorCHANQUES and the curators to find out which pieces are emblematic of the conservatory. I didn’t choose the pieces based on their aesthetic appeal, since the goal of this exhibition is to tell a story and convey meaning.
The only exception to this is a bust we found—no one knows the identity, history, or era of the person it depicts. I found it fragile and touching, so I decided to include it. It’s the only piece I selected based on a gut feeling.
There are some pieces that,unfortunately, we were unable to include because of their fragility. I was also drawn to other pieces, but they didn’t depict the human body and therefore strayed from the subject. I’ll explore those later for another, more personal project.
Some pieces are also too heavy to move. However, that is part of the exhibition’s story.
For some pieces that we couldn’t bring out to the Jardin des Plantes, we brought the Jardin to them by using branches and foliage.
Marie-Anne GILLAIN was born in 1773 in Montreuil, near Versailles.
She was sent to boarding school with the Sisters of the Visitation.
During the Revolution, she took refuge in Etampes, at the home of a relative who was the mother superior of the Hospitalières de l’Hôtel-Dieu.
There she attended the surgeon’s lectures and served for two and a half years, from 1793 to 1796, as a hospital volunteer—that is, as a layperson who volunteered her services to the poor and sick.
In 1797, she returned to Versailles to marry Louis BOIVIN, deputy office manager at the National Domains.
She became pregnant early on, but in 1798, at the age of 25, she was suddenly widowed, left destitute, and with a young daughter to raise.
She then decided to put to use the knowledge she had gained from the surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu d’Étampes and enrolled in the Midwifery School at the Maternité in 1799.
In 1800, she graduated and left for Versailles to be reunited with her daughter and pursue her career.
In 1801, following the death of her daughter, she obtained permission from Marie-Louise Lachapelle to return to the Maternity Hospice
In 1803, she was appointed chief supervisor of the breastfeeding unit. She held this position for eleven years, until 1814. During this long tenure, she took the opportunity to attend lectures given by her patron, the surgeons at the Maternity Hospital (Baudelocque, then Dubois), and the chief physicians (Andry, and especially Chaussier), from whom she gathered insights and lessons.
In 1812, she wrote and published *A Treatise on the Art of Childbirth*. The work was approved by the Ministry of the Interior, which included it among the textbooks given to graduates of the Maternity School.
In 1814, the position of supervisor that she held was eliminated, and she was dismissed with a gratuity equal to her annual salary, or 360 francs.
Starting in October, she was hired as a storekeeper and steward at the Poissy General Hospital, a position she held until January 1819, when the General Hospital was converted into a prison.
Little is known about this period of her life: Did she continue her obstetric practice despite her new, more administrative duties? Did she do so at the general hospital? Or with a private clientele? In any case, it appears that for a time she received a comfortable annual salary of 1,200 francs—almost as much as the head midwife at the Maternity Hospital.
In 1818, she entered the Paris Medical Society’s competition anonymously, submitting a paper on internal uterine hemorrhages. She was awarded the medal.
On February1, 1819, she joined the Maison Royale de Santé in Paris as chief supervising midwife, with a modest salary of 350 francs per year.
In 1821, an opportunity for promotion arose following the death of Marie-Louise Lachapelle.
According to procedure, the General Council of the Hospices must submit to the Minister of the Interior a list of five female candidates to succeed the renowned midwife.
On November 14, 1821, the Council voted to approve a list with Marie-Anne Boivin at the top; she received 12 out of 12 votes in the first round of voting to select the top candidate.
A month and a half later, the Minister of the Interior endorsed the Council's decision.
But the winner declined the position (or rather, resigned), forcing the board to propose another list. Why the refusal? All contemporary biographers attribute this decision to a public promise Marie-Anne Boivin is said to have made to her former patroness never to replace her, even after her death. If this is true, she kept her word, and another midwife, Madeleine Catherine Legrand, was appointed in 1822.
Marie-Anne Boivin therefore continued to practice at the Maison Royale de Santé, where she amassed a body of observations, publications, and honors.
In 1828, she presented a paper on spontaneous abortions, which was awarded a prize by the Bordeaux Medical Society.
In September 1835, at the age of 62, worn out and exhausted, she retired and urged the hospice board to grant her a pension. Finally, after suffering a first stroke that left her with hemiplegia, she died in May 1841.
In 1902, one of the rooms in the renovated maternity ward was named after Marie-Anne Boivin.
She was born in 1563 on Boulevard Saint-Germain or in Mons to a family of doctors.
In 1594, she married Martin BOURSIER, a master surgeon and student of Ambroise PARÉ.
She finds herself without any means of support when her husband is enlisted in the king's army.
She quickly gained a reputation among the ladies of the court and delivered the queen's children six times.
She is paid 500 crowns for the birth of a boy and 300 for the birth of a girl.
It lost its fame following the death of Marie de Bourbon-Montpensier, wife of Gaston d’Orléans, during the birth of the Grande Mademoiselle.
According to the surgeons who performed the autopsy on the woman who had given birth, her death was attributed to placental debris remaining in the uterus, and Louise Bourgeois was subsequently accused of negligence.
At that time, there were few male obstetricians practicing, and they were trying to gain the upper hand over the midwives' guild.
Louise questions their competence by harshly criticizing the autopsy findings and the skills of the obstetricians; however, her response has the opposite effect of what she intended, as it ends up giving them publicity.
She was the first midwife to write a book on obstetrics, *Various Observations on Infertility, Miscarriage, Fertility, Childbirth, and Diseases of Women and Newborns*, published in 1609.
In this book, she points out that infertility in a couple can be caused by the male partner, even though, like the doctors of that era, she confuses the ability to procreate with sexual vigor.
She identified the role of malnutrition in fetal health, and she was the first to prescribe iron supplements to treat anemia.
She emphasizes the importance of anatomical knowledge for midwives and urges doctors to allow them to attend lectures and dissection sessions.
In 1636, the Parisian midwives submitted a petition to the Faculty of Medicine requesting that Louise Bourgeois be allowed to teach them obstetrics, but their request was denied.
Subsequently, however, one of her students, Marguerite du Tertre de la Marche, was appointed head of the midwives at the Hôtel-Dieu and succeeded in overhauling their training program.
She died on December 20, 1636, on Boulevard Saint-Germain at the age of 73.
He was born on November 30, 1745, in Heilly, Picardy.
He was the son of Jean Baptiste BAUDELOCQUE, a surgeon, and Anne Marguerite LEVASSEUR. His brothers Félix Honoré (1744–1794) and Jean Baptiste (1749–1800) were both doctors. He was the third of ten children.
It was his father who introduced him to surgery in the countryside of Picardy.
He completed his studies in Paris at the Hôpital de la Charité, where a renowned professor of obstetrics, Solayrès de Renhac (1737–1772), was on staff.
In 1772, following Solayrès’s untimely death at the age of 35, he collected the manuscripts of his lectures and succeeded him as professor of obstetrics at the Hôpital de la Charité. Thanks to Baudelocque, Solayrès’s work was saved from oblivion.
In 1775, at the initiative of Augier du FOT, a surgeon and instructor of childbirth in Soissons, he published—based on manuscripts bequeathed by Solayrès de RENHAC—the first edition of a manual intended for the training of midwives. This work was later republished under his name alone, under the title“Principles on the Art of Childbirth: Questions and Answers for Midwifery Students.” It underwent three reprints during Baudelocque’s lifetime and three more posthumously.
In 1776, following the defense of his dissertation on symphysotomy, titled“An in partu propter angustiam pelvis impossibili, symphysis ossium secanda?,” he was appointed surgeon at the Hôpital de la Charité in Paris and was awarded the title of Master of Surgery by the Paris College of Surgery.
On April 5 or 6, 1777, in Paris, he married Andrée DERULLIER (née de Vulier, de Voulier, de Rullie, or de Rouillier), whose family made models of pregnant women for demonstrations in childbirth classes; she died on January 4, 1787, without children.
In 1781 and 1789, he published the first two editions of his scholarly treatise*The Art of Childbirth* in two volumes. He became famous for his forceps, his practice of cesarean sections, and the invention of the pelvimeter, which measures the external anteroposterior diameter to identify patients who might experience difficulties during childbirth.
On September 14, 1788, in Amiens, he married Marie Catherine Rose Laurent; the couple had five children (three daughters and two sons).
During the French Revolution, the guilds and faculties were abolished. Hospitals lost some of their staff and funding. Baudelocque, however, managed to build a reputation as an obstetrician thanks to a clientele in the city and private obstetrics classes.
In 1794, the former Faculty of Medicine was replaced by the École centrale de Santé de Paris, where he was responsible for teaching courses to medical students and midwives.
In October 1795, the Hospice de la Maternité took in poor women and unwed mothers to assist them during childbirth and provided clinical training for midwives and doctors from the École de Santé.
In addition, this facility also takes in abandoned children.
In 1798, Baudelocque, in addition to his position as professor of obstetrics at the Paris School of Health, became chief surgeon at the Maternity Hospital.
In 1802, the Hospice de la Maternité school was founded, where Baudelocque put his teaching skills to use, employing mannequins to help students practice examinations and obstetric procedures. He emphasized observation over intervention, preferring to let nature take its course and using instruments as little as possible.
Busy with his many responsibilities, he delegated part of his authority to the head midwife of the Maternity Ward, Marie-Louise Lachapelle (1769–1821), who took on part of the training of the midwifery students and was authorized to use forceps on her own in the event of a difficult delivery.
He was involved in a sensational lawsuit brought against him by an obstetrician, Jean François Sacombe, a fierce opponent of cesarean sections and a defender of traditional midwifery practices. Sacombe, who had set himself up as a defender of midwives and accused Baudelocque of infanticide, ultimately lost his case in 1804 and, in the process, any sense of moderation.
In 1806, Napoleon appointed Jean-Louis Baudelocque to the chair of obstetrics, the first chair in a medical specialty in France.
He became the obstetrician to the queens of Spain, Holland, and Naples, as well as to all the ladies of the court.
He had been chosen and selected in advance to deliver the heir awaited by Napoleon and Empress Marie-Louise of Austria. But, struck down by a cerebral hemorrhage, he would not live to see the birth of the King of Rome.
He died on May 2 or 3, 1810, at 16 Rue Jacob in Paris (6th arrondissement), where he lived, at the age of 65.
He was buried in the Vaugirard West Cemetery, then exhumed due to land acquisition for the construction of what is now Boulevard Pasteur.
He was then buried on August 17, 1839, at Père-Lachaise Cemetery (45thdivision).
He was the most famous obstetrician of his time.
A doctor at the Hôpital des Enfants Malades, he would lend his name to the Baudelocque Clinic in 1890.
In 1966, the Port-Royal Maternity Hospital was built. The two facilities merged in 1993 (14th arrondissement of Paris).
There is now a midwifery school on Avenue Denfert-Rochereau that bears her name.
He was born on July 2, 1746, in Dijon, in the parish of Saint Pierre.
His father was a master glazier.
After completing his training at the hospital in Dijon, his mother sent him to Paris to continue his medical studies, and he enrolled at the Royal College of Surgery, where he attended classes regularly from 1765 to 1767 and took anatomy courses taught by Raphaël SABATIER and Jean-Joseph SUE.
At the same time, he was learning the basics of surgery at Lafaye’s clinics and, in the afternoons, at those of Isaac GOURSAUD.
His years of surgical training came to an end in 1768, when he earned the title of Master of Surgery; he then settled in Dijon as a surgeon
He married Jeanne CARRE, the daughter and granddaughter of a master surgeon, on July 27, 1767, in Quetigny, Côte d’Or. Together they had a son, Bernard François Hector (1769–1837).
In 1769, he began teaching a free course in human and comparative anatomy, which was attended by many students for more than ten years.
In 1774, the Estates of Burgundy established a chemistry program with Louis-Bernard GUYTON de MORVEAU as the tenured professor and Hugues MARET and François CHAUSSIER as assistants. Upon MARET’s death in 1786, he was promoted to second professor of chemistry.
In Dijon, his professional qualities earned him the favor of his patients, and his reputation quickly spread beyond Burgundy; he distinguished himself at the Academy of Surgery through several presentations, and as a result, he was awarded the Academy’s Gold Medal at the public session on April 10, 1777.
He received his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Besançon on January 14, 1780, and in 1784, he became a corresponding member of the Royal Society of Medicine. That same year, he was admitted to the Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Literature in Dijon, where he became secretary-general following the retirement of Guyton de Morveau.
In 1785, at the request of the Estates of Burgundy, he published a popular guide on the treatment of bites from rabid animals: “Method for Treating Bites from Rabid Animals and Vipers; Followed by a Brief Treatise on the Malignant Pustule” (with Joseph Enaux, 1726–1798).
In 1789, he published a study on the muscles of the human body, in which he proposed a more rational classification than the one taught up to that point: “A Summary Exposition of the Muscles of the Human Body According to the Methodical Classification and Nomenclature Adopted in the Public Anatomy Course at Dijon”; this work was reprinted in 1797.
On December 20, 1789, he read a paper titled “Surgical-Forensic Observations on an Important Point of Criminal Jurisprudence” at the Academy of Dijon, in which he demonstrated the role that physicians could play in informing the judicial system; this work attracted attention, and the following year he launched a course in forensic medicine in Dijon.
On 3 Nivôse, Year III (December 23, 1794), he married Angélique LABOREY in Dijon (Crébillon District); they also had a son, Franck Bernard Simon (1804–1866).
In 1794, Antoine-François Fourcroy was tasked by the National Convention with reorganizing medical education and sought out a prominent figure who could provide him with the details of this reorganization. Claude-Antoine Prieur-Duvernois, from the Côte-d’Or, who headed the Department of Science and the Arts within the Committee of Public Safety, recommended François Chaussier, who thus joined the Committee of Public Instruction: he drafted a report and a proposed decree, which he read from the rostrum of the Convention on 7 Frimaire, Year III (November 27, 1794); In it, he proposed the creation of a single “Central School of Health” in Paris; the members of the Convention, who were largely in favor of decentralization, called for the creation of other similar schools in Montpellier and Strasbourg, and it was on this basis that the report was adopted on the 14th of Frimaire (December 4).
Chaussier returned to Dijon, where he resumed his lectures and studies as well as the duties that had been entrusted to him: he had been appointed physician of the Dijon Hospices in April 1793 and Prison Surgeon; he did not remain there long, however, as he was recalled to Paris to occupy the chair of anatomy and physiology at the School of Health. Chaussier was, in the words of Joseph-Henri Réveillé-Parise, the most famous professor of physiology at the École de Paris: he argued that vitalism was the foundation of all studies in physiology.
A decree dated 7 Vendémiaire, Year III (September 28, 1794) officially established the École Centrale des Travaux Publics, which would later become the École Polytechnique, the Board of Directors proposed, less than a month after the school opened, to establish an infirmary there and to appoint a “health officer” (the revolutionary term for doctors) to treat sick students and also to give lessons on “the art of preventing and alleviating diseases.” The roster of École Polytechnique staff for the following year lists him as an assistant to Claude Louis Berthollet, “simultaneously responsible for the courses in Zootechnics and Public Health, and School Physician”: in fact, he taught Berthollet’s course during the latter’s absence in Italy in 1796–1797. After the formalization of chemistry instruction, Chaussier appears to have abandoned teaching this science and confined himself almost entirely to his duties as a physician.
In 1799, *Les tables synoptiques* was published to great acclaim. It provides a summary of the physiology, pathology, and treatment of the various anatomical systems of the human body.
On May 9, 1804, he was appointed Physician of the Maternity Hospices and entrusted with the chairmanship of the medical examination boards for the examinations to become a Public Health Officer, Pharmacist, and Midwife for the district of the Paris Faculty of Medicine.
He was a member of the commission appointed by the Minister of the Interior in October 1810 to study “secret remedies”; there he worked alongside André Marie Constant Duméril, Jean-Joseph Menuret, and Nicolas Deyeux.
In 1815, after the fall of the First Empire, he was replaced as physician at the École Polytechnique, but he retained his chair at the Faculty until November 21, 1822, when the Restoration altered the Faculty’s organization: he was appointed honorary professor and his chair was revoked. He was deeply embittered by this, and the next day, he suffered a stroke that temporarily left him unable to speak or walk. He recovered, however, though he remained hemiplegic—a condition that did not prevent him from continuing his work at the Maternity Hospital.
On May 6, 1823, he was admitted tothe Academy of Sciences.
Between 1824 and 1827, he published several works on forensic medicine: “Forensic Manual of Poisons, Preceded by Considerations on Poisoning”14, “Collection of Papers, Consultations, and Reports on Various Topics in Forensic Medicine”15, “A Forensic Medical Treatise on the Viability of the Newborn, Presented toHis Excellency the Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice”16
François Chaussier died at his home in Paris on June 19, 1828, at the age of 81, from a stroke.
He was buried at Père-Lachaise Cemetery (18th division) on June 21: Nicolas-Philibert Adelon delivered a speech on behalf of the Academy; Marie-Alexandre Désormaux, representing the Faculty, did the same; and Duméril, on behalf of the Royal Academy of Sciences, read a lengthy eulogy.
Thesecond son, Franck CHAUSSIER, followed in his father's footsteps and defended his doctoral dissertation in 1827 in Montpellier.
He is a French physician, a professor at the Paris Faculty of Medicine, and a member of the Royal Academy of Medicine and the Academy of Sciences.
Chaussier was the principal editor of the articles on pharmacy inthe *Encyclopédie méthodique*13.
She was born in 1712 in Clermont-Ferrand into a family of doctors.
She first studied for three years under Anne BAIRSIN, a midwife.
On September 26, 1739, she received her diploma and shortly thereafter became a licensed midwife.
She worked as a head midwife at Châtelet in Paris for sixteen years.
In 1752, to combine theory with practice, she published a book titled *A Summary of the Art of Childbirth*.
In 1754, she returned to Auvergne and began giving free lessons.
In 1758, she designed her famous demonstration “machine” (made of wood, cardboard, fabric, and cotton), which was approved on December1 by the Academy of Surgery.
During the two-month training program, the students were encouraged to practice on the mannequin.
She died on April 16, 1794, at the age of 79 in Bordeaux, in poverty and solitude, with her niece and her husband absent. There is a Rue Angélique du Coudray in Thorigné-Fouillard and also a Rue Madame-du-Coudray in Clermont-Ferrand, her hometown. The maternity ward at the hospital in Melun (77) also bears her name.
