Hospital of Lyon

The Hospital of Lyon is one of the largest buildings of the peninsula. It is built in western edge of the the Rhone. First Lyons hospital (the first buildings are attested in 1184), it is always in exercise today.

History

The Middle Ages

In the vicinity of the year millet, a laic congregation was created to facilitate the pilgrimages and the exchanges: it was the Confrérie of the brothers pontiffs. She built bridges to facilitate the communications and built with their outlets of the hospitals to collect the pilgrims. Thus in XIIe century, the Lyons section of the Brotherhood began the construction of the bridge of the Rhone (the bridge of Guillotière) and in its vicinity a hospital in 1184-1185 establishes: the hospital of the Bridge of the Rhone, ancestor of the Hospital.

The direction of the Work of the Bridge changed several times of hands, passing in the bosom of several religious congregations. Master Martin Conras, the first appointed doctor, was engaged in 1454.

Of this Hospital, built by the municipality in 1478-1480, there remain nothing today, after the rehandlings of XVIIe and XVIIIe centuries.

Rebirth

Hospitals of the Middle Ages being of small capacity of reception, the aldermen of Lyon (whose Gadagne and Symphorien Champier) decided to build a large hospital, on the spot of the current vault: it is the Hôpital of Notre-Dame of the Pity of the Bridge-of-Rhone or Grand Hospital .

In 1532, François Rabelais is named doctor of the Hospital, it had at its disposal a score of as well repented nuns “ as others which are returned inside there for the honor of God, to serve the poor which are nourished and equipped ”. Rabelais left its station in 1535 suddenly, probably because of the Affaire of the Wall cupboards.

The XVIIe century

In 1622, the buildings become exiguous are destroyed and replaced by a whole of constructions in the shape of crosses, grouped around a central dome: rooms of the Four-Rows. One builds a new church on the site of the old building, according to the plans of the Ducellet architect; one poses the first of it hones on December 23rd, 1637, in the presence of the cardinal of Richelieu, archbishop of Lyon, and the marquis de Villeroy.

Enlargings are still necessary, and the debt pushes the administration at the edge of the bankruptcy. One builds of 1658 to 1663 a building reserved to the convalescents, on the quays of the the Rhone.

The long wars which ensanglantent the end of the century increase the number of beggars, which goes to the tenth of the population. Louis XIV authorizes three Loterie S successive in order to gather subsidies necessary to the assumption of responsibility of the soldiers of the armies of Italy and Catalonia. He also grants new Privilège S to the Hospital.

Among the doctors of the Hospital, the most outstanding personalities of the time are Claude Pons, who treated the contagious patients (it bequeathed any sound well to the poor), Jean de Lamonière (the author of a Treaty on the plague), etc

The XVIIIe century

From 1741 to 1761 on the curtains of the Rhone the “ splendid temple is built”, true “ monument raised with the fever ”, as noticed it later Joseph II of Austria. The plans are establish by Soufflot; the stone frontage of white size is truly opulent with a rich person external decoration. The large dome is built as from 1755 in order to allow the renewal of the air in the immense common rooms. The statues of the king Childebert Ier and the queen Ultrogothe, founders of the very first hospital in 549, decorate the main entrance.

The dome is completed in 1764, but already one regrets “ the facility with which one devoted oneself to constructions more brilliant than useful ”.

The Hospital has excellent reputation at that time. From 1737 to 1748, one notes a mortality of one on four with the Hospital of Paris, against one on fourteen with that of Lyon.

The revolutionary age

This disastrous period in Lyon did not save the medicine and the care of the poor ones. Various decrees, of 1789 to the Thermidor 9, remove the religious orders and all that is “ organization ” (medical Companies, Collège of the doctors and the surgeons) as well as the instruction (allowing each and everyone to proclaim doctor). The result is a major disorder in the walk of the hospitals.

The financial position, hardly brilliant at the end of the Old Mode, becomes catastrophic because the main incomes of the hospitals ( grantings and Privilège S) are cut. The Vice-chancellors, after having financed personally the Hospital, are constrained to resign in 1791 and to give the direction of it to the Directory of the department the Rhone and the Loire, which names eight administrators. The assessment was appalling: “ it had in the house neither fabric there, neither flour, neither wines, nor drugs; the hospital was debtor, in exigible capital, of 3.246.437 books ” (A. Croze).

The Head office of Lyon by the armies of the Convention and the bombardment of the Hospital throughout all this seat, from August 8th to October 9th, 1793, left only ruins. Moreover, during the Terror which followed the head office of Lyon, one has draws up a precise list, although perhaps incomplete, guillotinées or shot victims:

eleven doctors
thirty-one surgeons including seven students in surgery
eight apothecaries or herbalists

The XIXe century

The hospital is still increased and shelters from now on nearly a thousand of patients, including a hundred and twenty-five soldiers. It loses little by little its autonomy: its administration merges with that of the hospital of Charity. One finds there: ; the doctors : eight holders named by contest since 1811, and four substitutes. They carry until 1866 the red dress and the hat ; the surgeons : Rehabilitated by the introduction of a contest in 1788, the surgery is brought to the level of medicine in 1794. Only one army surgeon, compensated by an assistant medical officer, deals with four hundred beds of surgery; he is in charge of the monitoring of the 17 pupil-interns, including those of medicine. This one must remain unmarried the time of its function (until 1879), and must place at the hospital (free housing downtown as from 1885). ; the chaplains : Named by the archbishop, they celebrate the masses every morning and manage the sacraments. A priest-treasurer manages the hospital. ; serving Them : one counts a hundred and ten brothers (they can give up their title of brother and join the public life), and a hundred and eighty ten sisters.

Lyon was at the XIXe century an active center of the surgery, so much so that “ to triumph with the majorat over the Hospital, it was to seize the septre of the surgery in the south of France ” .

Principal chirugiens-majors of the Large Hospital (there were 24 of it):

Marc-Antoine Petit, named in 1788
Joseph Gensoul (1797-1868): it was placed at the first rank of the surgeons to Europe by unknown operational boldnesses before him. It realized in 1827 the first résection of the jawbone, then désarticulations of shoulder, etc
Amédée Bonnet
Joseph Pétrequin (1809-1876)
Louis Léopold Ollier (1830-1900): to see the article which is devoted to him. It created with the Hospital the first orthopedic department of surgery, with the modern direction.
Antonin Poncet (1849-1913)
Mathieu Jaboulay (1860-1913): the named last of the army surgeons, and one of most brilliant. Master of Alexis Carrel, it practices the first transplantations of bodies (not followed success).

The XXe century

Etienne Destot and beginnings of radiology in Lyon

Röntgen discovers x-rays in December 1895; conscious of the enormous repercussions of this technique, as well in medicine as in technology, it makes gift with humanity of it. In Lyon, Etienne Destot carries out the first radiographies in February 1896 and, equipped and equipped, it creates the first service of French radiology in an unused shop of the Hospital. Ollier often has there recourse to the end of its career.

Leon Bérard, precursor of the cancerology

Leon Bérard creates in 1923 the second anti-cancer Center French in the large dome of the Hospital. It finances, via the Lyons Association of fight against cancer , the purchase of an significant amount of Radium which is used in the treatment of the cancers of the uterine collar and of the oral mucous membrane. The afflus of patients requires since 1935 a removal at the hospital of Barn-White, then, in 1958, the installation with the Center Leon Bérard.

Today and tomorrow

The Hotel God is currently a teaching hospital depend on the Civil hospices of Lyon. It also contains the Museum of the Civil hospices of Lyon, witness of its last rich person.

Its closing down is planned for 2010, it seems that the historical buildings can be converted into large medical and anatomical museum. No official decision was still returned.

To consult

External bonds

Museum of the Civil hospices of Lyon: Museum of history of medicine and pharmacy located in the walls of the Hospital.
Little story of the Hospital, by professor Rene Mornex
Seen air of the Hospital

Works

Medicine in Lyon of the origins at our days, Alain Bouchet and coll, Hervas editions, 1987

Random links: