PRESENTATION

The "Association des Amis du Patrimoine Médical de Marseille" was founded by Professor Yves BAILLE in 1996. Its aim is to "collect, preserve, highlight, display the cultural, material, medical, pharmaceutical and odontological heritage of Marseilles and open it widely to a public whether expert or not in this field".

The association has already organized several temporary exhibitions and published numerous articles and books on the history of medicine. Since 2001, a number of lectures, open to all, have been a real success.

Besides the information on the activities of the association and particularly those on the lectures, there is a team that livens up this site and whose aim is to provide a certain number of columns with the latest news on a monthly basis :

• The article of the month  It’s a short text in connection with some aspects of the history of medicine in Marseilles or in Provence.
• The object of the month It consists in focusing on an instrument used in the past for medical treatment in surgery, pharmacy or odontology and borrowed from the association or from some members’ private collections. The picture showing the instrument comes with a short text in connection with the time of manufacture and user instructions.
• The photo album will be enhanced with old photos, postcards, documents from archives, references to the history of public health activity in the city.
• Gems of archives the visitor will find some extracts from medical or administrative texts in connection with day to day incidents as well as reminders of regulations which today have become obsolete.
• Strolling in the streets of Marseille The local council chose to honor some doctors by giving their names to streets or squares and even to some specific places in the city. The public, more often, knows nothing about those doctors and why they were honored. This is an opportunity to remind us of who they were through a short biography.

Please, see below:

• the Association statutes
• the Board of Directors
• the Committee
• the working group
• the membership form
• the internet site
  

Summary of articles :

Thursday 19th March 2026
"Printed naturalist art since the Renaissance", Jean-Yves Meunier, entomologist and expert ecologist.
From prehistoric times, man has always tried to reproduce, through drawing, the nature that surrounds us, particularly hunted animals. Later, thanks to the invention of printing in the XVth century, the rise of books largely influenced the rise of science with a revival of observation from nature during the Renaissance and its necessary reproduction on paper.The evolution of engraving techniques - on wood, end-grain wood, copper, lithography- helped develop and improve the naturalistic representation that was going to support scientific research, thanks to the quality of illustrations, and would eventually position itself at the interface between science and art.

Thursday 12th March 2026
"If the Lamoricière were told to me", Dr Marc Borgnetta
Some shipwrecks are better known than others: that of the Titanic in the North Atlantic is the most famous one. Unfortunately, the Mediterranean is just as bad as this ocean, and was the stage of quite a number of hazards. One of the most striking shipwrecks was that of the Lamoricîere, one of the most majestic liners of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. Indeed, on January 6th, 1942, as it was sailing from Algiers to Marseilles, it was trapped in a particularly violent tempest and sank off the coast of Minorca. Out of the 300 people or so present on board, only about 30 survived. This tragedy, plunging many families from Marseilles into mourning, affected people for a long time and highlighted the very precarious condition of some French sea routes during the Second World War. In 2005, a team of wreck hunters started searching for it. Did they find it? You will soon discover.

Thursday 8th January 2026
"Painter's block", Pr Eric Barthélémy
Creating a work of art is the result of a long process. The artist has to make technical, plastic and semantic choices… But the original spark that Cézanne would call " ma petite sensation" , is in fact the choice of the subject. It is commonly believed that it depends on the artist's goodwill only. In fact, the artist often has to comply with rules, conventions and customs that all vary according to cultures and ages. In the XVIIth century for instance, the very influential royal academy of painting and sculpture imposed a hierarchy among pictorial genres : historical painting was the most valued one, in comparison with still-life paintings. From the XIXth century and the XXth century,mostly, artists started contravening those academic rules, aspiring to more freedom. Time had come for new opportunities. Starting from a selection of works of art selected in western painting, we will analyse how artists managed to free themselves from various constraints, such as a master's influence, a sponsor's demands, or the rules of the academy, thus developing their personal style. We will also see that artistic creation is an endless challenge and that the "painter's block", far from being paralysing, is also the incentive to creation.

Thursday 19th June 2025
“Paul BOURRET, inventor of the SAMU (Emergency Medical Service) and pioneer in road safety research”, Christian BRUNET
Paul BOURRET, chief surgeon at the Salon-de-Provence hospital, spent his entire life confronted with the horrors of a road and motorway junction where far too many young lives were lost due to a lack of consistent care. He therefore devoted his entire professional life to the search for safe means of transport.To achieve this, he enforced a dogma that was dear to him : it is the doctor's responsibility to go and take care of a polytrauma victim in order to keep them alive before their transfer to hospital. This is how the concept of SAMU, Service d’Aide Médicale d’Urgence (Emergency Medical Assistance Service) was born. But he tenaciously sought ways to act before an accident occurred: first by creating a research center to equip vehicles and road infrastructure with avoidance systems ( LMA, Salon-de-Provence), then by protecting passengers and pedestrians with specific devices, thus reducing the severity of injuries (LBA, Marseille). Therefore, one could speak of active safety (equipment on a vehicle to avoid impact) and passive safety (equipment to reduce the severity of the accident).

Thursday 15th May 2025
“The human body and nature”, Alain FROMENT
We are great apes, primates, genetically very close to chimpanzees and gorillas. The resemblance is obvious. But it can be shown that the construction plan of the human body is similar to that of seemingly much more distant species such as fish, flies, and even worms. Comparative DNA studies show this thanks to the identification of similar developmental genes. Going back even further, we share a common ancestor with fungi, dated back to approximately 1 billion years ago. More generally, the “Tree of Life “ project, based on the genetic sequencing of all living beings on Earth, including bacteria and viruses, postulates that they all have a single common strain, at the origin of life itself. As Darwin so aptly wrote as early as 1871”Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his low origin.”

Thursday 10th April 2025
“Overview of medical and surgical techniques in use in the Royal Navy in the XVIIIth century”, Jean-Claude MARTIN
The subject is based on a study of works from the period, in particular the book by M. Chabert, surgeon of the royal hospital for galley crews.In 1724, this author published a book which was the result of 50 years of experience serving the King's Galleys. We will briefly outline some of the most characteristic observations of his practice of war surgery as well as some common surgical pathologies. We will also focus on describing the management of surgical after-effects and the conduct of wound healing. With the help of the pharmacopoeia of the time, whose botanical and galenic aspects will be briefly examined, we will discuss his conceptions on the pathophysiology and evolution of lesions, often very ahead of their time. In the final section, we will discuss the techniques of plague doctors and surgeons, taken from P. Bertrand's work Historical Account of the Plague in Marseille in 1720. His reflections on contagion already foreshadow Pasteur's breakthroughs 150 years later.

Thursday, March 13, 2025
“Medicine and Surgery under the First Empire”, Jacques Di Costanzo
Modern medicine was born in Paris, under the Consulate and the First Empire, amid a veritable cultural revolution. The intervention of Napoleon, who was, as it happens, skeptical of medicine, was decisive because he gave the necessary boost to its modernization. Corvisart, Chaptal, Berthollet, and Fourcroy reformed healthcare in a profound way. Medical knowledge unique in Europe was concentrated on French soil. A university hospital teaching system was created: the dissemination of theoretical precepts to students was accompanied by direct practical application at the patient's bedside within a hospital structure.The externship and internship competition was designed by Jean-Antoine Chaptal, Minister of the Interior, in 1801. In 1808, Napoleon commissioned Fourcroy to create the Imperial University, within which the Faculty of Medicine was institutionalized; high-quality teachers such as Sabatier,Pinel, Baudelocque, Dupuytren, and later Laennec taught there. In addition to teaching, ministers asked questions or commissioned the Faculty on various topics, most often related to public health. Military medicine within the Grande Armée saw advances in emergency surgery with leading figures such as Larrey, Percy, and Desgenettes, who distinguished themselves in the innovation of surgical techniques, in “frontline” surgery, and in the comprehensive care of the wounded on the battlefield. The Napoleonic period also saw significant progress in many other areas, particularly in military art, institutions, major works, the arts, and literature.

Thursday, February 13, 2025
“The 1720 Plague of Marseille as seen by Michel Serre”, Régis Bertrand
Two paintings by Michel Serre (1658-1733), painted between 1721 and 1723, are on display at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Marseille: View of City Hall and View of the Cours during the Plague. A third painting, Le Chevalier Roze à la Tourette, is part of the collections of the Musée Atger in Montpellier. The artist was a direct witness to the plague and played a courageous role in it. However, we must take into account the pictorial conventions of his time and the fact that the three paintings were created in a studio. These works are based on a double contrast. They juxtapose a scene of horror, worthy of another age, with some of Marseille's most remarkable architectural achievements. The second contrast is between the state of distress in which the city finds itself and the actions of the authorities as they strive to combat the disaster. They combine, in extreme tension, the sick, the dying, and the dead, laid outside their homes or deceased on the spot, with able-bodied people bringing them food or spiritual comfort or removing the corpses. The View of the Town Hall commemorates civil and military courage. In its counterpart, the View of the Cours, the emphasis is on the intervention of the clergy. The third painting may have been commissioned by Nicolas Roze (1675-1733), the hero of the scene. All three suggest the permanence of a certain public order amid the chaos. The city food supply and small businesses are even mentioned. These works seem to have had a dual function, narrative and memorial,which was particularly effective : many books are illustrated with a scene taken from one of these paintings.

Thursday, January 9, 2025
“Saint Francis of Paola and the Minims in France from the late 15th to the 18th century”, Michel COLLOMP
Presentation of the former Minims convent in Marseille (1590 to 1790) and of the famous monks who lived there and distinguished themselves in the fields of science,astronomy, and botany. Discover the Order of Minims, its founder Saint Francis of Paola in the15th century, and his unlikely destiny that took him from southern Italy to the court of the King of France via Provence. The Minims liked to emphasize the humility of their religious order, which was nevertheless one of the most flourishing of the modern era thanks to their privileged relationship with the monarchy. It was in France, close to the royal castle of Plessis-lès-Tours, that at the end of the 15th century, Francis of Paola, a hermit healer from Paola in Calabria, founded his first convent and defined one of the most rigorous rules of life of the time. It was also there that the founder, who had become a court prophet, died in 1507. On the eve of the Revolution, the Order of Minims had no fewer than 153 convents in France (457 convents worldwide), a sign of an undeniable spiritual,philosophical, and scientific influence. However, despite this numerical importance and the renown of a few great “Minims” figures, particularly in Marseille, history long ignored these religious figures who were close to kings and urban elites and involved in literary and scientific networks.

Thursday, December 15, 2022
“October 1934, the Canebière Massacre“ by Vincent Laforge
Sarajevo, Marseille, Dallas... Three cities that seemed to have nothing in common... and yet! In less than half a century, each of them was the scene of a political assassination attempt targeting a head of state. Carried out by Croatian Ustaše terrorists, the shooting on October 9, 1934, on the Canebière claimed the lives of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, Foreign Minister Louis Barthou, a police officer, and two female bystanders. Europe in the early 1930s was not ready for war. The Marseille crime did not have the dramatic and almost immediate impact of the one in Sarajevo. Its consequences, however, would profoundly alter the European diplomatic landscape of the 1930s. While this tragedy is slowly fading from memory, it had, at the time, a considerable impact. As the first assassination to be filmed, its impact was comparable to that of the assassination of John F. Kennedy thirty years later. In both cases, the haste with which the investigation was conducted left the field open to proponents of conspiracy theories. For nearly eighty years, most writings on the case have accused the police of having brought grief to the Canebière. The authors of these popular works sometimes base their assertions on expert reports from the time, which they interpret without possessing the necessary technical knowledge. The most s More often than not, they simply repeat the conclusions of earlier studies. By directly examining contemporary sources—primarily from judicial archives and newsreels—the author was able to analyze, shot by shot, the gunfire exchanged between the terrorist and the police. The author, an emergency room physician from Marseille, a specialist in forensic ballistics, and a doctor of history, takes a critical look at the testimonies, autopsy reports, and the performance of the weapons used. His conclusions regarding responsibility for the Canebière massacre significantly differ from those of the authors mentioned earlier; for him, the assassin, Dimitrov Kerim Velitchko, is responsible for the deaths of the five victims and the injuries of the approximately ten wounded individuals. While he exonerates the French police of direct responsibility for the shooting, he cannot help but condemn them for the amateurism and carelessness they displayed in protecting the royal visit.

Thursday, November 17, 2022
“Professor Jean FIOLLE, His Era 1884–1955: From Surgeon to Writer“ by Robert Assadourian
In 1910, at the age of 26, Jean Fiolle had finished with competitive exams. Indeed, after passing two difficult exams, he was appointed hospital surgeon and professor at the medical school in Marseille. From 1910 to 1914, he was euphoric, as evidenced by his medical and non-medical publications. Among them, we note a novel co-authored by Jean and Paul Fiolle, Les Patibulaires, which was nominated for the 1913 Prix Goncourt. In 1914, everything was turned upside down!! As a war surgeon assigned to Auto-Chir 21, he advocated for rapid action and wide incisions in the wounded in two works published in 1916 and 1917. This message was heeded. After the war, which had left a deep mark on him, he resumed his surgical activities. He was appointed Clinical Professor of Surgery in 1933. Indeed, Marseille had become a Faculty of Medicine in 1930; he ended his career in 1955 at the Hôpital de la Timone. We will present this period through three aspects that define him: Jean Fiolle the Surgeon, Jean Fiolle the Painter, Jean Fiolle the Writer.

Thursday 13 October 2022
“The Wonderful and Tragic History of the Early Days of General Anesthesia” by Jean-Louis Blanc
The advent of general anesthesia is one of the major milestones in the history of medicine. Until the mid-nineteenth century, methods for alleviating pain were virtually nonexistent, and as a result, surgery was underdeveloped. The elimination of surgical pain was achieved through the inhalation of gases: ether, nitrous oxide, and chloroform. The first procedure under ether was performed at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston by surgeon Warren, with anesthesia administered by dentist William Morton in 1846. Its adoption spread extremely rapidly throughout Europe and the rest of the world. In Marseille, beginning in March 1847, Professor Etienne Villeneuve performed several obstetric procedures at the Maternity Hospital, as well as other procedures at the Hôtel-Dieu. After the first deaths occurred, chloroform replaced ether, and it was not until 1890 that ether regained favor among surgeons. As for nitrous oxide, it was recognized as very useful for short procedures such as tooth extractions and was introduced in Marseille in 1872 by Édouard Beltrami, who performed the first tooth extraction at the Hôtel-Dieu. In France, at the very beginning of the 20th century, the Ombrédanne mask greatly simplified anesthesia but the result was it slowed down research there, which, as a consequence, developed in the Anglo-Saxon world. Progress in France would then come after World War II, and gradually we witnessed the establishment of the discipline, the organization of its teaching through university chairs, and the development of services and then departments.