The École du Pharo was a French military school, specialized in teaching and researching tropical medicine, based in Marseille on the grounds of the Palais du Pharo.
History It operated from 1905 to 2013, initially training mainly French doctors and pharmacists, both regular and contracted military personnel; then doctors called up for national service, foreign military doctors, and French and non-French civilian health professionals.
Almost all the doctors who worked in the French colonial empire passed through the École du Pharo, which played a key role in health policy in colonized territories. In 1936, its educational role was complemented by creating research laboratories dedicated to tropical diseases and nutrition.
After 1960, it continued to provide training for all doctors and pharmacists serving under the French Ministry of Health Cooperation. In 1981 an epidemiology and public health department dedicated to community health was created.
In 2008, the French government decided to close the school. The activities were then redistributed, with the research activities of the entire French Armed Forces Medical Corps (SSA) grouped within a new, single military biomedical research institute and the public health activities of the whole SSA grouped within the Armed Forces Epidemiology and Public Health Center created for this purpose, and responsibility for training activities transferred to the École du Val de Grâce (Paris). The establishment closed its doors for good on June 30, 2013.
Over the course of more than a century of existence, the École du Pharo was officially and consecutively known as:
École d'application du service de santé des troupes coloniales (1905); École d'application et center d'instruction et de recherche du service de santé des troupes coloniales (1954); École d'application et center d'instruction et de recherche du service de santé des troupes d'outre-mer (1958); École d'application et center d'instruction et de recherche du service de santé des troupes de marine (1961); École de spécialisation du service de santé pour l'armée de terre et institut de pathologie exotique (1970); Institut de médecine tropicale du service de santé des armées (1975).
Background and origins
Colonial conquest The formation of the French colonial empire posed the problem of its sanitary management by health professionals. Their ancestors could be the physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries of the Royal Navy, who worked in the colonies during the Ancien Régime. The Consulate organized a "Colonial Health Service" for the Navy, but this often duplicated the military health of the land troops involved in the conquests.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the French Third Republic expanded its colonial empire through a policy of territorial expansion. The navy transported the troops needed for the conquests and later for the maintenance of order, and its doctors and nurses provided medical care for all these personnel, both on board and ashore.
These doctors were confronted on land with appalling epidemics among soldiers (yellow fever in Gorée in 1878, dysentery in the Far East between 1859 and 1861, cholera in Tonkin between 1884 and 1887, malaria during the Madagascar campaign in 1895, etc.) and with endemic diseases unknown among the indigenous populations. In addition, the administrative authorities wanted to improve the health of civilian populations as part of their "civilizing mission" to develop the colonies.
Colonial healthcare
As the Navy was unable to supply the ever-increasing demand for medical personnel, reform was needed. In 1890, a simple decree created the Colonial and Protectorate Medical Corps, detached from the Navy and placed under the authority of the Minister for the Colonies, responsible for running the hospitals in the colonies as well as supporting the military forces deployed in the colonies. The corps was therefore open to both civilians and military personnel.
This initial policy failed to solve recruitment problems. The career of a colonial physician was not very advantageous, dangerous, or rewarding. Very few civilians signed up, with the notable exception of Alexandre Yersin. In terms of honors, precedence, and advancement, colonials were at a disadvantage, and the staffing crisis worsened. In practice, recruitment remained almost exclusively military. What's more, ambiguities in the statutes made it difficult to manage careers and discipline, and consequently to keep the service running smoothly.
To resolve these difficulties, the law of July 7, 1900, granted autonomy to the Troupes Coloniales (the new name for the Troupes de Marine). On November 4, 1903, a decree created the Colonial Troops Health Service (SSTC) to replace the Colonial and Protectorate Health Service.
This "decree of understanding" divided the roles of the Ministry of War and the Ministry of the Colonies: the Ministry of War was responsible for the general discipline of colonial physicians (in metropolitan France and overseas). They are placed outside the framework of their profession when they are placed at the disposal of the Minister of the Colonies for overseas civilian missions (sanitary police, epidemic control, etc.). In this way, the SSTC was officially entrusted with missions for the benefit of civilian populations, confirming the duality of its mission.
Given the reluctance of civilian doctors to be civil servants in difficult conditions, health care in the French tropical colonies has always been a matter for military doctors.
Creation of the school The reforms did not solve the recruitment problem, which was added, with the explosion in knowledge (microbiology, parasitology...), a training problem. Following the example of Albert Calmette as early as 1890, many colonial physicians asked to improve their skills at the Pasteur Institute, where a training course for colonial troop physicians was regularly opened from 1903. But the scale of the practical problems encountered made it clear that a special school was needed for Colonial Troop Health Service officers.
The project for a specific school was conceived in 1900. The Ministry of War, responsible for colonial troops, proposed the creation of a practical school of tropical medicine. The location of this school was hotly contested, as at the time every town in France was seeking the honor of hosting a garrison or military institution.
As early as August 1900, Marseille applied for the project. As a reminder, in December 1883, Marseille had already applied to host a military medical school and had set aside a budget for this purpose, but the planned school was eventually set up in Lyon. The economic consequences of the Prado arena disaster on the one hand, and the cholera epidemics of 1884 and 1885 in the city on the other, were not unrelated to Lyon's choice of location.
Choosing Marseille The city of Marseille therefore decided to host the new establishment as close as possible to its medical school, which since 1893 has been housed in the enlarged and upgraded former imperial palace: the Palais du Pharo, partly used as a temporary hospital under the name "Hôpital du Pharo" since the cholera epidemic of 1884.
Since 1875 The city of Marseille had only had a full-fledged school of medicine and pharmacy, and for decades had been seeking to turn it into a faculty of medicine and pharmacy (the only faculty authorized to award doctorates), hoped that this co-location would advance its academic cause.
In 1902, the Director of the Colonial Health Service submitted a project for the creation of the school, in which he developed the necessary criteria for its establishment. Among other things, he emphasized the possibility of teaching tropical pathology in a hospital on site, which led him to conclude that "these elements can only be found in a seaside town" and to suggest Marseille, where colonial teaching at the medical school, a Colonial Institute and a Colonial Museum already existed.
At first, the city proposed allocating a wing of the Palais du Pharo to the school, but finally, at its meeting on November 25, 1904, the City Council decided to set up the Colonial Health School in a purpose-built building in the Parc du Pharo, next to the Anatomy Institute. On April 12, 1905, an agreement was signed between the Mayor of Marseille, Amable Chanot, and the Minister of War, concerning the installation and organization in Marseille of the Colonial Army Medical School.
The Marseille City Council was delighted, and the mayor drew a positive conclusion from the event: "I don't think I'm going too far in expressing my conviction that the establishment of the Colonial Health School in Marseilles will enable us to finally obtain from the government the transformation of our fully-fledged medical and pharmacy school into a faculty". In fact, this transformation would not take place until 25 years later.
Installation On October 3, 1905, the decree creating the École d'application du service de santé des troupes coloniales, at Marseille. was issued. Work began in 1906, under the supervision of the city's chief architect, Léonce-Aloïs Muller. On July 3, 1906, Albert Clarac, senior medical officer first class,Rank corresponding to colonel in the general military hierarchy. was appointed director of the school, while Paul-Louis Simond, senior medical officer second class,Rank corresponding to lieutenant-colonel in the general military hierarchy. was appointed deputy director, in charge of teaching bacteriology, hygiene and epidemiology. This first staff comprises 13 officers. The first class joined the school on February 1, 1907. The school was inaugurated on September 29, 1907, by General Louis Archinard, Commander of the Colonial Army Corps.
As France's colonial, decolonization, and cooperation policies evolved, and as the health function of the armed forces was reformed, the scope and name of the school changed.
Schools before World War I (1905–1914) The École du Pharo became the headquarters for doctors and pharmacists serving overseas (public health) or with colonial troops (in France and overseas). Its first official title was École d'application du service de santé des troupes coloniales.
Premises and location The agreement signed in April 1905 between the city and the Ministry of War allocated to the new school the western part of the Jardin du Pharo, at the foot of the brand-new anatomy institute, opposite the field of maneuvers. A three-story building plus a half-basement was erected for teaching and administration purposes. In addition, the pavilion at the left entrance to the park was allocated as accommodation for the school's director. This was the counterpart of the pavilion allocated to the park's janitors and junior staff, which did not please the Director of the Colonial Army Corps Health Service.
The town remains the owner of the land and buildings, which are subject to an emphyteutic lease. In addition, the Ministry of War, which had vast holdings in the district, allocated premises to the new school at Fort d'Entrecasteaux (a military site located on the other side of Boulevard du Pharo, which became Boulevard Charles Livon in 1922).
Mission and teaching From the outset, the school's vocation was to provide practical rather than theoretical training for doctors and pharmacists who had already graduated, as stated in the decree of October 3, 1905: "to provide second-class medical officers and pharmacists and traineeRank corresponding to that of second lieutenant in the general military hierarchy. medical officers and pharmacists in the Colonial Army with the special professional, theoretical and above all practical training required to fulfill the service obligations of the Colonial Army Medical Corps in France and the colonies... ".