Abstract

Sophie Riché, directed by Sylvain Riquier, the former conservateur, has inventoried every document in the Public Health Archives of Paris at 7 rue des Minimes to create an impressive, comprehensive guidebook. This volume of almost 900 pages now takes its place among the Etats des fonds that have long guided researchers through the thousands of boxes and bundles deposited in the Archives de France.The authors confronted five idiosyncratic reference systems that, in the end, they decided to maintain. These inventory Léon Brièle's lists of old regime documents; hospital registers covering hundreds of years; the archives' library and rich card catalogues; recent acquisitions; and, most important, the so‐called Fosseyeux catalogue, a “marvellous grab bag” according to a former conservateur, Valérie Poinsotte. It lists 136 items, many of them bundles held together by a piece of string . Untying a liasse initiates a treasure hunt—the researcher's delight, the bibliographer's nightmare.To use this guide, one must understand the editorial decisions fundamental to its layout. The Assistance Publique de Paris was created in 1849. This leads the editors to focus on the past 150 years. A “policy of collecting and publishing” has replaced a “policy of documentation” . The editors created an alphabetic list of 144 “hospital structures” since they wish to “privilege the producer” . Each entry consists of most of the following : a brief historic description, a bibliography, and a guide to archival documents with sections on administration, personnel, finances, architecture, gifts, inmates, inquiries, medical archives, plans, and images. An up‐to‐date supplement is forthcoming. Footnotes act as links and dispense good advice. Researchers who are curious about a contemporary institution will be well served.Less favored are scholars interested in historic developments. Events corresponding to the old regime are inserted into the alphabetical list of contemporary institutions. A glance backward reveals their past activities. Thus under Charité‐Gifts we find “List of donors, 1601–1797” and under Charité‐Inmates , “Register of admissions, 1702–1935”—two of the rare lists that extend far into the past. As for tables of information regarding patients at Bicêtre, the Hôtel‐Dieu, or Salpêtrière, they begin in 1810 !The other epoch that falls victim to this inventory's present‐mindedness is the Revolution and Empire, when the French government attempted to transform Christian charity into secular welfare , the citizen‐patient's entitlement. Three reports document this momentous effort: those of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld‐Liancourt to the Poverty Committee of the Constituent Assembly in 1791 and those of the Hospital and Public Health Councils of the Seine Department in 1803 and 1816. These reports appear only as bibliographic snippets for each concerned institution. This approach contravenes the spirit in which the treasures of this archive were collected by past conservateurs such as Marcel Fosseyeux and Marcel Candille . A future inventory of the Assistance Publique before 1849 should also heed the legacy of that great scholar and friend of our field, the late dean Jean Imbert, whose work underlines the interrelationships of past, present, and future.The authors freely acknowledge the lacunae with a list of “topics not dealt with” . Here we find groups such as the mentally ill and the blind, but also topics such as secularization. One looks in vain for information about the Sisters of Charity, the Brothers of Charity, or the Augustinians of the Hôtel‐Dieu. Only one page deals with modern nursing . “Pharmacy” is more explicit . A general index would be helpful. The main desideratum, in my opinion, is a complementary guide to public assistance from the perspective of the old regime and the Revolution and Empire. It is regrettable that an editorial decision appears to have excluded foreign‐language works from the secondary literature of this inventory.These archives are open Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 5:30 without the usual annual closing. Photocopying is by permission, and some documents must be requested 48 hours before they can be viewed. Researchers have long been welcomed and guided here in an exceptionally friendly and helpful manner, and the new conservateur, Agnès Masson, and her staff continue this tradition