Exploring a hospital heritage

Exploring a hospital heritage

The exhibition presents Montreal’s origins, the history of the Hôtel-Dieu, the city’s first hospital founded by Jeanne Mance, and the Hospitallers of Saint Joseph, who managed the Hôtel-Dieu until 1973. During your visit, discover the unique artifacts and archives that make up the Nuns’ collection. These objects will allow you to relive the evolution of medi

It was in a small stone hospital with a ward containing only six beds that Jeanne Mance nursed the first inhabitants of Ville-Marie, aided by a few assistants and the settlement’s first surgeon, Jean Pouppée. Aside from her French compatriots, Jeanne Mance’s patients included the sick and wounded from the allied Huron-Wendat and Algonquin communities. The Hôtel-Dieu’s first nun-pharmacist, Judith Moreau de Brésoles, arrived in 1659. She was a dedicated student of the science of medication, and her remedies were famous at the time. In 1901 the Hospitallers opened a nursing school to train lay students. In 1945 it was given the title École des infirmières de l’Hôtel-Dieu. In the 1960s the name was changed to the École des sciences infirmières, and it was during this period that men began being accepted into the profession. The permanent exhibition also presents some outstanding examples from the Hôtel-Dieu’s religious treasure (including paintings, sculptures, silverware and paper filigree works), several of which date back to the New France era. The treasure is composed of religious items used during services, for ornamentation or in the veneration of relics. In touch with their times, the Hospitallers commissioned a number of exceptional liturgical and decorative objects from such well-known artists as Jourdain dit Labrosse, Chaboillez, Arnoldi and Catelli.