Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Former School of Naval Medicine of Rochefort was founded in 1722 to train surgeons on ships of war. Originally integrated into the Marine Hospital, in 1788 she moved to a pavilion of the new hospital, designed by architect Pierre Toufaire. The school innovates with a pedagogy focused on practice, anatomy and surgery, thanks to scientific collections (anatomical models, instruments, grasslands) and a library enriched since the eighteenth century by legacies and revolutionary seizures.

The gradual closure of the school, which became a preparatory institution in 1890, ended in 1964 with the definitive cessation of the courses. Following the closure of the hospital in 1983, the National Marine Museum redesigned the premises to open them to the public in 1998. Today, the museum presents on three levels (room of Acts on the ground floor, library on the 1st floor, collections on the 2nd) an intact testimony of the naval medical education of the 18th and 19th centuries, with objects, works and decorations of the period.

The museum's collections include 25,000 volumes (including a 1478 incunable), surgical instruments (ophthalmology, dentistry, amputations), botanical and zoological samples, and ethnographic artifacts reported during expeditions. The hall of the Acts, the old dissection room, and the Health Council illustrate the historical organization of the school. Ranked a Historical Monument in 2022, the pavilion retains its original layout, offering an immersion in the naval medicine of Ancien Régime and of the 19th century.

The school has played a major role in the training of naturalists and doctors, as evidenced by the works preserved (country reports, manuscripts). Its holdings, where natural history accounts for a third of the works, reflect the importance of science in the navy. The museum, managed by the National Marine Museum, now attracts visitors for its scientific heritage and preserved architecture, with 7,500 admissions in 2008.

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