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In France the desire to expand public health developed mainly because of the hygienist movement which prevailed in the 19th century. This paper aims to show how medical doctors committed themselves deeply at the Chambre des députés and Sénat with the objective of creating the legislation to control sanitary standards which was written between 1870 and 1914.

After World War, especially during the interwar years, new plastic surgical techniques were highly developed by I two French surgeons: Dr Raymond Passot, a pupil of Pr Hippolyte Morestin, Head of surgery department in Val-de-Grâce military hospital, Father of the Gueules cassées and Dr François Dubois, a pupil of Pr Sébileau, head of ear nose throat disorders department at Lariboisière Hospital in Paris. By the way of papers, publications and interviews to media, they described new French cosmetic techniques (rhitidectomy, sutures, liposuccion) and extensively developed this outpatient surgery. They used to renove famous actresse's and actors' face and nose and those of hundreds of patients. They participate to French societies of plastic surgery meetings and publications. Their enthusiastic dare largely participated to the current success of cosmetic surgery in France.

How is it that lice, such a common parasite, have shaken the Napoleonic empire? This paper, based on medical literature and on proven facts, is going to tell the history of such a "war pestilence", a "contagious typhus".

This paper reports about a manuscript from Doctor Pelletier who accounted the causes of death rate in a village of the Vendée: pneumopathy, typhoid, diarrhoea linked to unhealthiness provoked by stagnant waters.

At the beginning of the XXth century, Stéphane Leduc (1853-1939), physician and biologist in Nantes (France), believed that he created a new discipline: the synthetic biology. Using his own works on diffusion and osmotic growths, he considered that the structures obtained by him were very closed to living beings. In 1907, his conclusions were strongly criticized and his papers were refused by the Académie des Sciences de Paris, because they questioned spontaneous generations. This paper relates Leduc's experimental works and conclusions and as well analyses his analogical method.

The paper studies the great epidemics that have affected Europe from the middle ages until the 20th century. A special emphasis is put on in the mortality of the Black Death in 1348 (500 per thousand), the smallpox in the 18th century (150 per thousand), the spotted fever in the end of the 18th century (50 per thousand), the cholera pandemic in the 19th century (25.5 - 62.7 per thousand), the tuberculosis in the end of the 19th century (5.3 per thousand) and the mortality that the Spanish influenza produced in the beginnings of the 20th century (12.1 per thousand) in the Basque Country.

Théodore Vetter (Strasbourg, 1916, June 19th - 2004, July 8th) was qualified as a medical doctor in medicine in 1948 in Strasbourg, and then followed complementary courses in medical biology in Paris. He realized most of his career as an adviser for medical research in pharmaceutical industry. He presented an early talent for drawing and graphic arts, encouraged by Georges Ritleng (1875-1972), headmaster of the School of decorative arts in Strasbourg. One expression of the artistic gift of Th. Vetter consisted in design and making of ex-libris, field in which he acquired an international reputation. In total, he realized about two hundred ex-libris, mostly for physicians. Also attracted by the history of medicine, he became a member of the Société Française d'Histoire de la Médecine; he was general secretary from 1965 to 1970, then he became vice-president and president from 1976 to 1978. He was the author of about a hundred works concerning the history of medicine; all were characterized by a great rigour and by the direct use of original sources. Among his main works, his studies on the oculist Jacques Daviel (1693-1762), popularizer of the surgery of cataract, on the surgeon Claude Nicolas Le Cat (1700-1768), on the birth of pathology, a commented edition of the complete works of Hippocrates, translated by M.P.E. Littré (1801-1881), and numerous papers on the history of medicine in Strasbourg and Alsace.

On January 16, 1793, seven hundred aud forty nine deputies of the National Convention are called on to express their opinion by word of mouth about this question: "What penalty Louis, former king of the French, brought upon himself ?" Among these deputies, 47 are or were physicians : 22 vote for death without delay, 3 for suspended death sentence, 20 for indulgence (imprisonment till the peace and banishment thereafter), and 2 refuse to vote. This paper aims at summarizing the attitude of the physicians-deputies, and more specifically those of Pierre-Joseph Duhem, at the time of one of the most famous trials of the history of France.

François Calot (1861-1944) was an orthopaedist surgeon in Berck from 1890 to 1941. He acquired an international fame thanks to a paper read before the Academy of Medicine of Paris, on 22nd December 1896 about 37 cases of reduction of the angular curvature in Pott's disease. As he wrote many books on orthopaedic surgery he also founded the "Institut orthopédique de Berck" which is now named "Institut Calot".

The aim of this work is to assess, on an historical and critical point of view, the new psychological perspective, introduced by Charcot (1825-1893), during the ten last years (1882-1892) of his life to explain hysteria symptomas. From clinical examples (hypnosis and hypnotherapy, "hystero-traumatism", "psychological theory of hysteria", "faith healing"), the paper shows how psychological dimension went back into the Parisian Hospital Medicine. This occurred on the late XIXth century, just one century after Mesmer, when Freud was Charcot's intern, at La Salpêtrière hospital, during years 1885-1886. The return of a non-rational thought into hospital medicine upset the organicist concepts of the Parisian "Ecole anatomo-clinique".

In 1918-19 the so-called spanish influenza pandemic killed about 20 to 40 millions people all over the world. In France the loss of life was reckoned between 125,000 and 250,000 civilians and 30,000 soldiers though the epidemiological data have been incomplete. The virus allegedly came from the United States of America with the American forces which landed in the western harbours of France and probably with Indochina's troops or Chinese workers hired in the French factories. The disease spread in three waves from April 1918 to February 1919. The second wave was the most severe in September, October and November. Half of the dead occured among the 20-40 old people as the older people were more disease-resistant. Lethal forms were due to respiratory complications which often killed in a few days. The government did to preventive measures that were unequally applied as the treatment could be only symptomatic. The reactions of people were astonishingly cautions probably because the papers were ordered not to deal with the epidemic as long as the war lasted for.Some new serological studies and molecular biology techniques led up to clarify the strain of the 1918 influenza virus without further understanding of its special virulence.

For one century some members of the SFHM contributed to these sciences by their papers read to the SFHM. The author bears witness of their significant role in such scientific and medical areas.

When the "Société d'Histoire de la Pharmacie" was created in 1913 a quarter of its members were physicians. Some of them-such as Doctor Dorveaux-took a significant part in both societies. Then, for nearly sixty years, the two societies did not regularly hear from each other. However, since about twenty years, they came into contact again through meetings and common papers.

Since the first medical writings some medical doctors pointed out the past of medicine and wrote papers about the origin and evolution of medicine. The first trials of rational history were showed in this paper which attempted to compare the History of Medicine written by medical doctors and the History of Medicine written by a philosopher such as Plato.

Firstly, this paper recalls the way by which Jean Théodoridès, after having worked for many years on Casimir Davaine, had been led up to study the life and works of Pierre Rayer who had been the Davaine's master. Secondly, the author relates how his friendship with J. Théodoridés led him to investigate some new documents and information to complete Théodoridés study on Rayer. At last, he shows that a more systematic search in notarial recordre could give him, later, a better knowledge of some aspects in the private life of Rayer and his family.

P. Rayer (1795-1867) had never thoroughly published his experimental studies on the contagion of glanders. His recently un-earthed hand written papers allow us to depict his experimental approach and its results. He was not the first who transmitted glanders from a patient to horses or donkeys. But he did it systematically with glander secretions from acute and chronic cases. Whatever was the disease of the donors the transmitted forms were unpredictably either chronic or acute. His conclusion was that the two forms were two symptomatic aspects of a unique disease. Clinically dormant states were shown to be also contagious. He demonstrated it through deliberately altering healthy and sick horses inside the stable and by using saddles, bridles and brushes of sick horses on healthy ones. Moreover he excluded other causative factors tentatively proposed, peculiarly food products. The systematically logical and rigorous experimental approach used by Rayer for this research is a mile stone, 30 years before Pasteur. This methodology is still nowadays used to study the epidemiology of diseases such as Prion Diseases, Mad Cow for instance.

The authors recount the important contribution of Professor Sournia as he worked for the French Society of Medicine History for thirty-five years. As a devoted general secretary he managed in 1973 the Society officially recognised as a state-approved institution. Then in 1979 and 1980, he was the President of our Society with authority and awareness of need for some reforms. He was an attentive chief editor of the journal "Histoires des Sciences Médicales" in which many of his original papers demonstrated his wide-ranging education and the diversity of his interests: Arab Medicine and Surgery books, History of Public Health, History of Medical Jargon, the lexicography by Littré, the major epidemics included leprosy, many medical biographies etc. Thus it was not surprising that he has published his "Histoire de la Médecine et des Médecins".

Rejuvenation by monkey testicle transplanting was terribly fashionable in Paris, between years 1925-1930. The manual miracles done by a group of very well-known surgeons, in Paris, (especially Serge Voronoff and Dartigues) rooted in the head of a too credulous public the idea according to it was possible to be made scientifically younger by genital graftings. The "Etude sur la vieillesse et la rajeunissement par la greffe" (1926), written by Voronoff, provided the clinical, histological and iconographical proofs of a such rejuvenation. The paper analyses that was put forward as "proofs", situated in the scientific and cultural context of the time. A possible link between youth, sexual vigour and animality sends back to a mythic history of gerontology and endocrinology, two medical fields which however became scientific specialties in the beginning of the twentieth century.

After a short history of the High school of pharmacy of Strasbourg and of the school of medicine and pharmacy of Nancy, and their situation in 1870, the author describes the modalities of the transfer concerning pharmacy. The first years in Nancy and the difficulties due to the existence of military fellows and to vacancy of two chairs are evocated here. The names of numerous teachers are given. The paper continues about the autonomy of the school in 1876, with the professors nominated at the chairs, with the extension of buildings and increase of students. Despite of early difficulties encountered during the settling in Nancy, it appears that the transfer from Strasbourg was a success and the school of pharmacy found rapidly its place inside the great University created in Nancy after the war.

John Frederick Oberlin (1740-1826) minister and philantropist for sixty years in a Vosges valley, not far from Schirmeck-Rothau, studied sciences at Strasbourg University. He brought to his parish phythoterapy, Linne's classifying of plants and some start of scientific medicine. Two of his sons took their Doctor's degree at Strasbourg and one of them worked part of his life as a General Practioner in the valley. The present paper makes mention of a few plants in the herbarium preserved at the parsonage Museum of Waldersbach with their copies in slides. The interest they offer lies in their excellent preservation and the medical properties written out in French, German, Latin and Vosges provincial dialect. It is called to attention there may be an uncertainty about the present name of one plant.

The lecture given by P. Brocq on "The Hotel-Dieu from August 19th to 27th 1944" and P. Canlorbe's doctoral dissertaion on "The Medical Services in the French Resistance" have not received the attention they deserve. I was present at the Hotel-Dieu during that period and I wish to pay a just tribute to the personnel of the Paris hospitals. Historical events such as the beginning of the insurrection in the Police Headquarters on Saturday August 19th and the reaction of the German troups still in Paris are presented in this paper, along with some medical data, the rapid organization of a complete surgical unit similar to those deployed in wartime, including fearless volunteers who picked up casualties and dispatched them to the appropriate treatment centres composed of eight surgical teams. A message of hope was dropped over the Police Headquarters at around 6 p.m. on Thursday August 24th, more than five hours before Captain Dronne's detachment reached the Hotel-de-Ville and Place Notre-Dame. On Friday August 25th, the tactical group led by Colonel P. Billotte was triumphally acclaimed when it reached the wide space in front of the church. The number of casualties indicates how fierce was the confrontation: 822 wounded (398 Frenchs and 424 Germans) were admitted to the Hotel-Dieu, of which 283 died (78 French and 205 Germans). In the other Paris hospitals of the Assistance Publique, 3,083 patients were admitted for wounds and 567 died. The personnel of those hospitals was extremely performing during this period and also paid a heavy tribute. Three members of the Hotel-Dieu died and 10 were killed at the Bichat Hospital during the Lufwaffe air raid during the night of August 26-27th 1994. Time has come, more than fifty-three years later, to commemorate the courage of the personnel of those hospitals who effectively and generously fulfilled their mission during Paris Liberation.

The important contribution of P. Rayer to parasitology (human and animal) had never been studied so far. It includes chiefly a dozen papers published in Archives de Médecine comparée (1842-43), a creation of Rayer. They deal with myxosporidia, helminths (nematodes, trematodes) and ectoparasitic insects. In the same periodical are published important parasitological contributions from germanic authors (J. Müller, G. Simon, A. de Nordmann). Three other papers from Rayer (1838, 1850) are devoted to human parasitic diseases (urinary bilharziosis, wuchereriasis) of which the exact etiology was still ignored. Two unpublished letters from G. Breschet and H. M. Edwards to Rayer dealing with the 1842-43 papers are given here. The contribution of Rayer's disciples to parasitology is then recalled: C. Davaine (the most important), Ch. Robin and J.A. Laboulbène.

The author recalls the very fine clinical, epidemiological and experimental work undertaken since 1907 at Beni Ounif de Figuig, south of Oran near the algerian-moroccan border which led Henry Foley and Edmond Sergent to suspect and later demonstrate the exclusive role played by the louse (Pediculus corporis or more precisely P. vestimenti) in the transmission of relapsing fever of which they studied an important epidemic occurring there between 1907-1910. This discovery led them to incriminate also the louse in the transmission of exanthematic typhus of which the epidemiology is practically similar. On the occasion of a tunisian epidemic of relapsing fever Charles Nicolle resumed Sergent's and Foley's work which he contested without any justification. Trying to attribute to himself all the merit of the discovery of the role of the louse in the transmission of relapsing fever, Charles Nicolle quotes Sergent's and Foley's works contesting them with a certain bad faith. In 1912 he mentions only Sergent's and Foley's 1910 works (posterior of only one year to his confirmation of the role of the louse in the transmission of exanthematic typhus) and ignores totally their 1908 preliminary paper. One must therefore give full credit to Henry Foley associated with Edmond Sergent for this essential discovery of the role of the louse in human pathology in which they occupy the first place.

Alexis Carrel is died in 1944. A half-century later, the most we know about his life comes from his widow. Pupil of the Jesuits, faith lost with Claude Bernard, recovered thanks to his wife, papers lefts to the Jesuits ..., all is well. Too beautiful edifying story to be true ... Details show that mystification trouble is in it. Who was, what thought exactly Carrel? Light may be shed only by an exhaustive study of his manuscripts and letters.

From Viviani's ministry to Clémenceau's, Justin Godard was secretary of state at the Military Health Department. The tremendous amount of warfare dramatically revealed the deficiency of the Health Department at this time. Then Justin Godard decided to take the lead and re-organise this department: "the right skills at the right place", as well as moral values. Among others, he deployed and multiplied hospitals and surgical units, including the new concept of "autochires" (nearly 3000 fully equipped ambulances). In the spirit of appropriately exploiting skills he founded specialised centres. As a matter of fact, he never neglected wounded and war traumatised. He founded re-education centres and established exhaustive measures for pensions to disabled ex-servicemen. In this paper an overview of his actions during the period is given.

Between about 1880 and 1902, very few Malagasy students obtained their medical degrees from European Universities. The aim of this paper is to call attention on one of them, whose name was Ramisiray, who submitted his doctoral dissertation in July 1901 to the Faculté de Médecine in Paris. Having written it on the traditional medical practices and beliefs of the people of his own country, he became very famous both in France and in Madagascar.

Charcot occupies an important place among Rayer's disciples although they did not publish any work together. They met for the first time in 1848 and later at the Société de Biologie. From 1853 to 1855 Charcot was Piorry's chef de Clinique" near Rayer's department at the Charité hospital. In 1860 Charcot was nominated "professeur agrégé with Rayer's backing. Several publications of Charcot with other disciples of Rayer (Ch. Robin, C. Davaine) are recalled as well as his paper, signed alone in 1858, on chronical arterial ischemia (Syndrome of Bouley and Charcot). An unpublished letter from Rayer recommending Charcot to the librarian of the Institut de France (1859) as well as a partial and undated one from Charcot back from England to Rayer are published here.

Charcot's career, as is well-known, reached a summit with his acquisition of the Faculty clinical chair of diseases of the nervous system inaugurated in 1882. Based upon previously untapped archival materials at the Charcot Library and the National Archives, this paper explores four questions: I. Was "Charcot's chair" really the first specialized chair for neurology?; 2. Was it founded specifically for Charcot?; 3. What role did the Faculty of Medicine play and did it offer any opposition?; 4. How important was the creation of the chair for the flourishing of the Salpêtrière school. Evidence is presented to show that Charcot considered a specialized chair in nervous diseases a high priority for his career and his school. Sometime around 1880, convinced of the importance of this project, he began to assemble arguments in its behalf from French and foreign sources, particularly from his German colleagues, Westphal and Erb. He learned that there were no precedents, not even in Berlin. Charcot's carefully prepared manuscript memoir presented a strong case for the "necessity" of the chair based on the recent progress and theoretical as well as practical importance of his subject. He described psychiatry, which already had a Faculty clinical chair, as but a "small part" of neuropathology and rejected the idea of combining the two disciplines. Although the project encountered opposition from several Faculty colleagues, who claimed that it was a personal favor for Charcot, powerful support from political allies such as Gambetta and Ferry ensured government funding. In fact, government action in behalf of the creation of the chair for Charcot preceded and surprised the medical Faculty. This paper shows the extent to which Charcot's own initiatives and arguments set the agenda and defined the role he envisaged for the new foundation at the center of the clinical research and teaching centre emerging under his direction at the Salpêtrière.