Visit to a collection of pathological waxes

Name: Visit to a collection of pathological waxes
Start: 2023-09-16T10:00:00+02:00
End: 2023-09-17T17:30:00+02:00
Location: Hôpital Saint-Louis

Presentation of this unique collection and the historical context that allowed its creation: an important testimony of the history of medicine and more particularly of dermatology

16 and 17 September 2023Passed

Conditions

Free entry

Musée des moulages, Hôpital Saint-Louis, AP-HP

The Saint-Louis Hospital Museum’s moulding collection, with nearly 5,000 pieces, is the largest in the world. The casts were made from 1865 to 1958 by Jules Baretta and his successors. Although the latter are no longer part of the teaching aids of dermatology, they remain a determining element of the history of medicine and the representation of the sick man, as well as an artistic heritage to be preserved.

About the location

Hôpital Saint-Louis

1 avenue Claude-Vellefaux 75010 Paris

Paris
Île-de-France

Built in the early seventeenth century under the reign of Henir IV, who himself laid the first stone of the chapel in 1607, the Saint-Louis hospital was created to relieve the congestion of the Hôtel Dieu during plague epidemics. Its historic quadrilateral, similar to the Place des Vosges, and its chapel are witnesses of this time. Another remarkable site is the Musée des moulages, which tells the story of dermatology, which began in Saint Louis in the 19th century. It has 4 collections of wax casts representing skin diseases, made for the teaching of dermatologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today, Saint-Louis Hospital is a specialized hospital for dermatology, hematology and cancer. On the occasion of the heritage days, the hospital opens its doors for a stroll in the form of a treasure hunt, a journey through the seventeenth to the twenty-first century.