A story of men and women

The history of medicine is a fascinating adventure: it is part of the history of humankind, marked by countless events, schools of thought and discoveries in circumstances as surprising as they are unexpected. There is a history of medicine, and medicine within history. It is a story of men but also of women who, for many years, remained in the shadows and made major discoveries that they were sometimes dispossessed of. Professor Jean-Noël Fabiani-Salmon, who has saved thousands of hearts, honours us by sharing a few selected stories. Former head of the cardiovascular surgery department at the European Hospital Georges Pompidou, he heads the teaching of the history of medicine at the University of Paris and is the author of many books and articles on medicine. We warmly thank him.

A master midwife.

To be clear, this wasn't exactly luxury, and apart from those who had been able to attend her teaching at the Châtelet de Paris, the standard of these on-the-job-trained birth attendants (still called "matrones" or even "ventrières") was truly catastrophic. Infant mortality remained as [...]

Rosalind Franklin, the unjustly forgotten story of the great scientist who discovered DNA

James Watson said of her: "She's got a real bad temper! It's all too easy to criticize someone's character when you want to harm them. But there's no denying that Rosalind has character, and fortunately so, for it's a character that has to be well forged when you're a [...]

Hildegarde, a visionary naturopath in the 12th century

It's true that since the Paleolithic era, our gathering ancestors have understood that certain plants have an effect on the health of the body, and that the medicine-women of Neanderthal clans kept seeds in their wineskins for use when they deemed it useful. It was the pharmacists of the 19th [...]

Suzanne Noël, pioneer of cosmetic surgery

On this June day in 1912, in this avenue as wide and silent as a cemetery alley, a young woman still hesitates to ring the doorbell of a handsome, opulent building. Behind this door, however, hides the woman she has come to meet, the star of the age: the great Sarah Bernhardt. She has just returned [...]

Trotula's funeral procession from Salerno

Monastic medicine. But to understand the story of Trotula, we need to delve into the mysteries of the world and medicine of the early Middle Ages: it was at the beginning of the 6th century when everything had been razed to the ground by barbarians from the east, when buildings, civilization and [...]

A naked woman on the walls of the Faculty of Medicine

Who is this Agnodice unveiling her charms to the magistrates of the Areopagus? Why is she appearing before the Athenian court? Why does the medallion speak of a woman doctor, when medicine was reserved for men? What does this story tell, displayed before the eyes of the students? Agnodice of Athens [...]