Guy Patin and his martyrology of those dead because of antimony.

Antimony was a chemical drug, similar to arsenic and lead, which was used in medicine since the 16th century. It brought intense controversy: for his supporters, it possessed exceptional properties, with three simultaneous effects, summarized by Libavius formula : vomere, cacare, sudare ... appreciable qualities at a time when Humorous theory was anchored in the minds. The detractors of antimony, among whom Guy Patin (1602-1671), pointed out that many patients treated with this remedy died... Patin's reflexions against the use of antimony in medicine are found in his letters, with a cumulative list of accidents that Patin liked to call his "martyrology of antimony", an expression he used, for example, in a letter to Andri Falconet on March 20, 1654. Our aim is to place Guy Patin's writings in the medical and social debate of his time, when several writers such as Benserade, Molire and Boileau also participated.

[Montaigne and the experience of falling from his horse]. / Montaigne et l'expérience de la chute de cheval.

Around 1573 or 1574, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) suffered afallfrom his horse, followed by fainting for two or three hours. He describes the accident in the 6th chapter of the second volume of his Essays, from two points of view: evocation of the accident itself and description of what he felt during this experience that enabled him, somehow, to "be close to death". This text, where Montaigne explains one of his intimate experiences, appears as an important light on the origins and the nature of his Essays.

[Raspail, propagandist himself from the "warnings" of the manual of health, between 1845 and 1878]. / Raspail, propagandiste de lui-même à partir des "avertissements" de son Manuel de santé, entre 1845 et 1878.

During the last thirty years of his life, between 1845 and 1878, François-Vincent Raspail (1794-1878) published each year a new edition of his Manuel de santé (Manual of Health), which was intended as a practical guide to prevent and treat, using in particular camphor, major human diseases. Each edition was accompanied by a preamble, as an annual forum where the "revered teacher" applied to give information on his family, his trial, his stays in prison, his resentment, his exile, his publications, schedules consultations, etc. As a libertarian protester against the powers wether medical, political or judicial, Raspail was a tireless defender of the poor and weak, and this attitude earned him his reputation and his popularity. This positive image of "secular saint" was built from an effective propaganda, where the Manuel de santé and its preambles played a central rol.

[Presence of terms for birds, aquatic animals and insects in medical language]. / La présence des volatiles, des animaux aquatiques et des insectes dans le langage médical.

After a first lecture, in April 2013, about the presence of mammals in medical language, the author gives another part of his panorama of animal metaphors used in medicine, focusing this time on the birds, aquatic animals and insects. The second part of this study confirms that animals, or at least the image of them in the past, were regularly present in medical nosology.

[Esquirol and dementia]. / Esquirol et la démence.

Jean Etienne Dominique Esquirol (1772-1840), after Pinel (1745-1826), stated precisely the symptoms of dementia according to the new medical definition of the word: a disease including all the states of intellectual weakness for various reasons. For example Esquirol clearly distinguished dementia from mania--that is to say our present psychoses--, and also from mental deficiency. In the same time Esquirol became more and more conscious, from 1814 (cf. his contributions to the Dictionnaire des sciences médicales, in 58 volumes, dir. Panckoucke) and 1838 (his famous work Des maladies mentales), of the very nature of senile insanity compared with other kinds of dementia.

[Jean-Charles Sournia and Berry]. / Jean-Charles Sournia et le Berry.

A previous Eloge has been pronounced on June 30, 2001 during the work session of the French and the International Societies of History of Medicine. It was devoted to the various aspects of the medical, historical and public career of Prof Jean-Charles Sournia (November 24, 1917-June 8, 2000). The present session of the French Society of History of Medicine hold in Bourges, on June, 18, 2005 is an accomplishment of the wish of this child of Bourges, the capital of Berry. In this intoductive paper, from family testimonies and photographies, details are given about the childhood of Jean-Charles Sournia in Berry, his scholarship and his family. Sournia was deeply attached to the family house, to the city where he was born and to its hospital, called hôtel-Dieu.

[Medical mythology and etymologies]. / Mythologie et etymologies médicales.

The lecture is an allusion to Sournia's work and his book "Mythologies de la médecine moderne". (P.U.F 1969). The author evokes the origins of medical terms such as psyche, hermaphrodite, nymphomania, aphrodisiac, marcissism, hypnotism, etc.