[Medicinal plants and symbols in the medieval mystic altarpiece].

The medieval mystic altarpiece towers above the altar table. It is linked to the evocation of a religious mystery beyond our faculty of reasoning. Symbolism of an enclosed garden evokes the image of the Heavenly Garden isolated by a wall from the rest of earthly world.

[The unicorn and the unicorn horn among apothecaries and physicians].

In the 4th century A.D. the first unicorn was shown as a little horse with a twisted horn and was completely different from the Oriental one described by Marco Polo.

[The plants in the Issenheim's altarpiece].

On the decorated panels an altar, the so-called "retable d'Issenheim", in Colmar, several painted plants can be easily identified.

[The surgeon René Guillet (1913-2002).His actions in the hilly regions of France in Aian and Haut-Jura in 1944].

In 1943, René Guillet, a young surgeon in the Department of Professor Mallet-Guy, took part in the Resistance as he helped the wounded men in the hospital of Edouard Herriot. René Guillet joined the French Army of the Resistance on June 6, 1944. Then, in July 1944, he took care of the wounded men in the hospital of Oyonnax with doctor Parker, an English surgeon in the French hospital in London.

[Mural paintings of Jean Coquet at the Desgenette Hospital in Lyon].

René Nicolas Dufriche Desgenettes (1762-1837) became famous through two historical events: the first and most famous one is where he proved his courage by inoculating himself with the plague during the Syrian campaign in 1799; the second one, rarely represented in paintings, happened during the Russian retreat in 1812 when he was freed thanks to his reputation. Two wide fresco paintings facing each other in the hall of Desgenettes, a hospital built during World War Two, are witnesses of these two major events. Jean Coquet (1907-1990), a decorator, painter and glassblower, who worked at the Beaux-Arts School of Lyon, first as a decoration teacher than as its director, painted these two works of art.

[Welcome by the Academy of sciences, letters and arts of Lyon (with Guy de Clauliac, 1300-1368 Jules Guiart, 1870-1945)].

Jules Guiart was born in Château-Thierry in 1870. He took over from Louis Lortet at the chair of Parasitology and Natural History in Lyons while Jules Courmont took over at the chair of Medicine and Bacteriology in 1906. Guiart taught History of Medicine in Lyons and in Romania.

[François de Lapeyronie, from Montpellier (1678-1747). "Surgery restorer" and universal spirit. The soul, Musc, rooster eggs].

François de Lapeyronie was a master in surgery in 1695 in Paris then in 1717 and rewarded with the rank of Medical Doctor of the University of Reims. The authors try to underline his intelligence and his broadmindedness through three publications about the centre of the soul in the corpus callosum, the anatomical dissection of a kind of stone marten and the scientific research of the so called 'egg of cock'.

[The disfigured men represented by the great painters (O. Dix - G. Grosz - R. Freida.) Disfiguration in the history of art].

Sophie Delaporte's book, Philippe Paillard's, Chantal Roussels's novels and Dupeyron's movie underline the difficulties of repairing physical and moral sufferings of the "disfigured men" wounded during the Great War. Beside medical and technical didactic aimed drawings the exhibition of wasted, mutilated or out of repair faces remains little known. In France, Germany or Great Britain there are many artists who took part in war.

[Dr. Edmond Locard (1877-1966), the Sherlock Holmes of Lyons].

Doctor Edmond Locard (1877-1966), a French forensic scientist, a disciple of famous Professor Alexandre Lacassagne, created in Lyons, in 1910, the first French laboratory of technical police. During more than fourty years, he used and developed new scientific techniques (fingerprint identification, study of marks and dust..

[Military surgeon Henry Gabrielle (September 1887 - April 1968)].

As a military surgeon Henry Gabrielle had a heroic behaviour during the World War I. He was appointed professor of surgery at the hospital Val-de-Grâce in 1919 and in 1926 he became professor of anatomy at the Faculty of Medicine in Lyon. His action in the French Resistance was so significant that he was appointed Health Director of the Region Rhône Alpes.

[Three Copt mummies of Antinoe in Lyon].

Three mummies--one of a woman and two of a woman and a child--are nowadays presented in the Museum of Anatomy Testut-Latarjet in Lyon. They have been brought in 1901 from Egypt to the Museum Guimet of Lyon and after a few years, they have been given to Professor Testut and studied by Louis Paul Fisher and Frederique Cantero in a thesis of medicine of Lyon (1991). They have been examined by x-rays non-invasive scanning by Professor Michel Bochut.

[Jacques Lisfranc de Saint-Martin (1787-1847)].

For 22 years Jacques Lisfranc was the famous surgeon at the Hospital La Pitté in Paris. He was born at Saint-Paul-en-Jarez in 1787, a village sited between Saint-Etienne and Lyon. After his Internship in Lyon he became Dupuytren's student in Paris.

[Some French doctors as writers in the first half of the XXth century].

The author recollects the memory of more than 50 French medical authors of this period. Some of tham are cited in the dictionary le Petit Robert. Many were novelists or literary critics.

[Luke, evangelist and physician].

Luke, author of the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles was also a physician. As he was born in Antioch he was probably Greek. He travelled with the Apostle Paul.

[Victor Moreau and his son practised the first joint résections].

Victor Moreau (1746-1799) and his son (1778-1846) were surgeons in Bar-le-Duc (French Department of Meuse). Victor Moreau invented the first joint resection technique in 1782 and submitted written comments to the "Académie Royale de Chirurgie" in 1782 then 1786 and 1789. At that time amputation was the only way of saving wounded and injured patients' lives and a conservative technique was an actual revolution in bone and joint surgery.

[Progress in surgery of limb's wounds during the Great War].

The prominent tenets of limb's wound surgery have been improved during the Great War. Before 1914, traditional treatment of war injuries was usually applied on the ground because injuries caused by firearms were supposedly trivial while the threatening infection refrained surgeons from acting. From the very start of 1914, gangrene and septicaemia were the terrible consequences of new types of injuries provoked by shrapnel, all the more dangerous that the wounded men were numerous and the injuries were nursed after a too important delay.