Millenial The Faculty of Medicine

A bit of History

Adjacent to St. Peter’s Cathedral, the university is located in a former 14th century monastery that was devoted to law and theology. Lord Guilhem VII had already signed an edict authorizing the teaching of medicine in Montpellier, but it was not until 1220 that the “Faculty of Medicine” was officially recognized.

It is the oldest medical school in the West that is still functioning. The walls of the hall are decorated with portraits of the most famous teachers in formal dress, among them a certain François Rabelais.

The Faculty houses numerous treasures, including a library of 900 manuscript volumes, 300 incunabula, 100,000 volumes printed before 1800, and all the theses produced by the faculties of Montpellier and Paris since the 17th century.

The Pharmacy Museum, founded in 1972 in the Faculty of Pharmacy, gathers numerous documents on ancient and contemporary pharmacy, and the collections of the druggist of Pharmacy, preserving thousands of medicinal plants.

The historical complex of the Pharmacy and the Chapel of Mercy contains the last apothecary still in place, with a rare collection of Montpellier earthenware pharmacy pots.

The Saint-Côme Amphitheater, built in the middle of the 18th Century on the model of the Amphitheater of St Côme in Paris, was used for anatomy demonstrations. Today, the CCI is installed there.

The Atger Museum, located in the heart of the historic buildings of the Faculty of Medicine, contains a collection of drawings, including some on human characters. Atger wanted to donate his collection to the faculty of medicine, so that students could, through drawing, assimilate human anatomy and sharpen their sense of observation.

The Fabre Museum is located on the site of the former Salle de l’Evêque and the Jesuit College, and moreover a street very close to the museum still bears the name “Rue de la Salle l’Evêque“.