[The Museum of the Hôpital Saint-Louis]. / Le musée de l'hôpital Saint-Louis.

In 1866, Alphonse Devergie, physician supported by Armand Husson, manager of the Assistance publique created a permanent exhibition of teaching images of skin diseases at the Hôpital Saint-Louis (Paris). Twenty-five years later the initiative was made concrete by the inauguration of a building housing a museum, a medical library and rooms for outpatients. Enriched by the works of dermatologists, moulageurs - mainly Jules Baretta -, painters and photographs the museum became worldwide renown exhibiting the largest wax moulages collection of the world. Today the didactic value of the moulages is no longer used. The collection illustrates several aspects of hospital dermatology during a century. Listed as an Historical Monument in 1992, the museum has been recently renewed thanks to the support of private and public actors attracted by its patrimonial value. © 2018 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved. © 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. Tous droits réservés.

[History of the Journées Dermatologiques de Paris]. / Histoire des Journées Dermatologiques de Paris.

Founded in 1801 at the Hôpital Saint-Louis, Paris, under Jean-Louis Alibert, the French School of Dermatology was initially structured around the French Society of Dermatology (1889) and the organization of two world congresses (Paris 1889, 1900). After World War I, the creation of dermatological societies in the provinces infused French dermatology with new energy. In 1922, the first congress of the French-speaking dermatologists further contributed to the public profile of dermatologists in France. The "Journées de Mars" were initiated in 1961 at the Hôpital Saint-Louis, and in 1975 they went on to become the "Journées dermatologiques de Paris". Pr. Jean Civatte played a key role in their creation and in their organization for 30 years. After 1979, since actual patients could no longer be presented, the organizers of the congress had to change the content of the meeting from clinical presentations to post-graduate teaching and clinical research. From its origins in the form of meetings of French dermatologists in an intimate setting at the Hôpital Saint-Louis, the "Journées dermatologiques de Paris" grew within the ensuing decades into a major scientific event of the French-speaking dermatological community, bringing together more than 4000 participants in December each year.

[1801-2001: two centuries of dermatology and venereology in the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris]. / 1801-2001: deux siècles de dermatologie et de vénéréologie à l'Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris.

The specialization "Dermatology" was born at the Saint-Louis hospital in France in 1801, in the light of the revolutionary reforms that led to fundamental changes in the functioning of the hospitals in Paris. Hence, the Saint-Louis hospital occupies an eminent position in the history of dermatology in France, reinforced by the role of Jean-Louis Alibert, who founded the French school of Dermatology. Despite the place occupied by the physicians of the Saint-Louis Hospital in the creation and development of the French school of dermatology, other physicians in other hospitals contributed to the expansion of the dermatology school. The work of Pierre Rayer, in the nineteenth century, at the Saint-Antoine and subsequently the Charité hospitals, are within this scope. More recently, the re-organization of the Faculty of Medicine into University Hospital Centers has permitted the creation of various treatment, teaching and research centers within the structure of the public hospitals in Paris. From the start, syphilis was part of the Dermatology teaching and practice. In Paris, several so-called "specialized" hospitals were created to house patients presenting with syphilis. Later on, the existence of these hospitals was questioned notably because of the constraints that their functioning imposed on the patients. Anti-venereal care centers were developed in response to the request of the practitioners to facilitate the access to treatment.

Robert Willan and the French Willanists.

In 1798, Robert Willan published the founding textbook of British dermatology. In adopting the elementary lesions principle previously described by Josef Plenck and improving the nomenclature of the skin diseases, Willan established a method for the diagnosis and a doctrine for the nosology of the cutaneous diseases. Introduced into France by Biett in the 1810s, the Willanist method, which allowed diagnosis on the basis of objective criteria, was adopted by the majority of the dermatological community. However, as a doctrine, Willanism, the use of elementary lesions as a framework for classifying diseases, became the subject of lasting debate. In fact, apart from a few, most leading French dermatologists did not accept Willan's doctrine and preferred classifications according to systems which were supposed to reflect the best understanding of the cutaneous diseases: physiological, aetiological and pathological. Willanism is still used by every dermatologist as a method for recognizing skin diseases. It constitutes a firm link to the founding period of modern dermatology and remains a bastion against uncertain hypotheses.

[History and geography of ritual circumcision]. / Histoire et géographie des circoncisions rituelles.

Ritual circumcisions can be classified into types according to the circumstances in which they are performed. Spiritual circumstances which express a community identity, usually religious and surrounded by a complex significance related to numerous myths, especially biblical and African. Non-religious circumcisions, particularly well illustrated by the USA model, comprise, apart from controversial medical and scientific reasons, a real social dimension and also reflect a desire for community membership. Regardless of the circumstances, surgeons may sometimes be asked to perform circumcision and should be aware of the significance of this procedure.