Paris Journal 2012 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

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Two establishments for medical education were on our agenda for Heritage Days: the Faculté de Pharmacie and the Université Descartes, including its museum of history. Both are buildings that we have walked by many times, and both are normally not open to the public. The Faculté de Pharmacie overlooks the Jardin Cavelier de la Salle, just south of the Luxembourg Gardens. This stately building was constructed in 1882, to replace a worn-out, smaller building on the rue de l’Arbalète, behind the Val de Grace hospital complex. We had to sign up for a guided tour if we wanted to see the place, and I managed to talk us into the 2PM tour even though the guide thought it might be full, and had at first suggested that we join the 4PM group. Once we were signed up, we had 20 minutes to spend in the park. I made use of the time photographing the Four Corners of the Earth fountain in the Jardin Maro Polo. On such a spectacularly beautiful, sunny day, the water sparkled and the fountain was at its best. Back at the Faculté de Pharmacie again, I picked up one of the school’s history brochures, and a timeline handout, and we read as we waited with the other members of our group. For Heritage Days, everything is in French because what’s being featured is French culture and heritage; these events are not designed for tourists from foreign lands. Our guide then led us to the lecture hall called La Salle des Actes. All university lecture halls should look like this, but they don’t. This great hall was restored in 1994. Its paneled walls display 90 oil-painted portraits of great apothecaries and pharmacists of the past. Included among them is a portrait of Henri Moissan, the first French person to receive the Nobel Prize in chemistry, in 1906. He was the first to isolate the element fluorine. The hall has brass chandeliers. Its benches are pews that are upholstered, and they look more comfortable than they are. The total effect is formal and awesome. Taking photographs was forbidden. But here’s a web site that shows some of the paintings. A professor of pharmacy gave us a full-length lecture on the history of the school, and biographies of some of the most prominent men in the portraits on the walls. One whom he thought to be most significant was Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737-1813), who was an army pharmacist who discovered the nutritive values of the potato. We understood much of the lecture, which was entirely in French. (The better educated the French person, the more likely we are to understand him/her, unless the speech is too fast.) Later on the tour, when we were in the 19^th-century style museum of pharmacy, we had more difficulty understanding the much younger guide, who spoke rapidly. He spoke for a long time, however, and as he grew tired, he slowed down, and we could understand him better when he spoke about morphine and quinine, toward the end of our tour. The tour was long. But the French people on the tour (we were the only non-French, I think) did not seem to mind; they seemed to be interested in learning everything that they could. They paid attention, and were polite except for one woman who argued a bit with the lecturer in the Salle des Actes. The debate they were having was, in part, about how pharmaceutical research should and should not be funded. We did not emerge from the building until almost 4:30. If we were going to make it to the Université Descartes, we would have to hustle. So we walked quickly to the north, and slightly to the east, through the beautiful Luxembourg Gardens which were brimming with more people than we’d ever seen there before. We arrived at about 4:40, too late to take a tour of the university building, but not too late to walk through its grand corridors and staircase, up three levels to the museum of the history of medicine, which was open until 6PM. We were oversaturated with French by then, so we just walked around and looked at the exhibits in the old-fashioned gallery. The room was brightly lit by a verriere, a glass ceiling. For 1.50 euros, I bought a visitor’s guide to the museum, which I have not yet read. So I will tell you more about that place later. I had heard about this museum, and had been wanting to visit it sometime. But prior to this weekend, its location was not clear to me, and I had not investigated it. For dinner, I’d made a reservation at La Cuisine de Philippe again. I ordered the starter of the day, a crab soufflé, and the daily special, duck a l’orange. Tom ordered the bass filet with mushroom risotto, and then a caramel soufflé. All was delicious and good, except that Tom’s soufflé didn’t pouf all the way, and was too liquid-like in the middle. But service was very good, ambiance was perfect, and my duck a l’orange was wonderful. So was the crab soufflé, which contained a few long, tender, delicious pieces of crab meat. Really nice. Now it is time for me to go listen to organ music. And then we’re off to see two more sites for Heritage Days. Bye for now. Find me on Facebook

Sunday, September 16, 2012 The Four Corners of the Earth fountain in the Jardin Marco Polo. The Faculté de Pharmacie building on the avenue de l’Observatoire. Duck a l’orange, at La Cuisine de Philippe. The history of medicine museum at the Université Descartes. ← Previous Next →