General hospital

The Fronde generated an economic crisis and a development of the Pauvreté at the time of the reign of Louis XIV. April 27th 1656, the royal capacity created the general hospital which aimed to exempt care with the poor, with the unmarried mothers… but also to be used as d'" place; enfermement" for the beggars.

It makes it possible to gather various Parisian establishments created under Henri IV (Hôpital of Charity and Hôpital Saint-Louis), under Louis XIII (Hôpital of Pity, Hôpîtal of the Convalescents, Hôpital Laënnec) and at the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV (Hôpital of the Saint-Name of Jesus-Christ). In 1670, it will integrate the House of Layer of Paris which becomes the Hôpital of Child-Found the. Beside the General hospital exists many establishments concerned with the Hôtel-Dieu of Paris.

The personnel is primarily monk: the Brothers of Saint-Jean-of-God arrived to France in 1601, the Girls of Charity created in 1633 by Vincent of Paul, the Hospital Augustines of the Hospital. Starting from the royal declaration of December 1698, the General hospital was directed by an office made up of seven administrators sitting of right and twenty-six elected members. Dominated by the Jansénistes it was involved in the quarrels between the Parlement of Paris and the royalty. Corruption and the incompetence were rather frequent. The hospital life was deplorable and mortifère. The ministerial attempts at reform of 1749-1758 failed. Only the Hospital Necker, private foundation, was a model of hygiene for the time. The General hospital profited from the exemption of the import duties on the food products which it used. A royalty of three pennies per day on the carosses of Louage was allotted to him in 1702. The hospital received gifts and legacies.

An edict of 1662, ordered the creation of General hospitals in each city. In 1788, there was forty-eight hospital in Paris and more than seven hundreds in France.

Systematic Enfermement

The progression of the Pauvreté increased the Mendicité, the Vagabondage, the Agression S and the Prostitution in the big cities.

During the 17th century, the royal capacity wanted to regulate this problem enfermement by following a policy of systematic in the institutions depending on the general hospital . This policy was before all the expression of a will of law and order which did not have a true medical concern. Thus in Paris in the establishments of the Salpêtrière, the Pity, Holy-Anne, Bicêtre, Saint-Marcel, it was a question of accommodating according to the same terms of the Edict of 1656 the poor “ of all sexes, places and ages, of some quality and birth, and in some state which they can be, valid or invalid, sick or convalescents, curable or incurable ” (quoted by Mr. Foucault, Histoire of the madness at the traditional age ). Very quickly the population locked up in the Parisian establishments reaches the threshold of 6.000 people, that is to say 1% of the population of the time. The provinces were also gained by this movement of reaction to misery and, the day before the Revolution, one counted 32 general hospitals in all the country.

But this movement largely exceeds France, this policy of internment forced of the poor has affected the whole of the European States. In England, since 1575, an act of Elisabeth I instituted establishments aiming “ the punishment of the vagrants and the relief of the poor ”. The “houses off correction” which should have been present in each county will leave the place to the workhouses which in second half of the 18th century will find their true expansion. Foucault notes that in “ a few years, it is a whole network which was thrown on Europe. ” In Holland, in Italy, Spain, Germany also creates for themselves places of internment of comparable nature.

Limits of the system of enfermement

This Politique of enfermement systematic was inhuman and an error in the medical plan. It was disputed by the Philosophes Lights and finally abandoned.

Concept of hygiene

to supplement

See too

History of psychiatry

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