玉美人传媒

A few years ago, the Martin Bodmer Foundation organised a major exhibition on the history of medicine. Is this a theme of particular interest to you?

Jaques Berchtold: Martin Bodmer wanted to collect documents tracing the best of thought in all fields and from all countries, what he called "Weltliteratur" or world literature. Medicine was one of these essential fields, which he wanted to keep track of. The major exhibition on the history of medicine in 2010 was the result of a meeting with a physician, Gérald d'Andiran, who was passionate about the subject and very effective at mobilizing people's wills. The result was an extremely ambitious exhibition, with major loans from the world's most prestigious libraries. And one of the Martin Bodmer Foundation's greatest public successes! The last copies of the magnificent exhibition catalogue are held by the Faculty of Medicine. 

For us, this is indeed a prestigious gift, which also underlines the deep-rooted links between the Faculty of Medicine - and more broadly, the 玉美人传媒 - and the Martin Bodmer Foundation. And you have been an Adjunct Professor at our Faculty for several years.

JB: The Faculty of Medicine, through its Institute for Ethics, History, and the Humanities (iEH2), pays particular attention to research and teaching on the historical and ethical aspects of medicine. The Martin Bodmer Foundation is a pleased partner, and my title of Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Medicine was an opportunity to formalise this highly successful partnership. It also shows how important it is for medical students to understand how their future profession fits into the history of humanity, and to reflect on its ethical consequences.

What did you want to show in your current exhibition?

Yoann Givry: As the Foundation is currently closed for major renovations, we have the opportunity to go beyond our walls and offer something a little different, in a place where different audiences meet and cross paths. For reasons of heritage preservation, we are presenting here high-definition reproductions of priceless documents from our collections - except for one, the illustrated cover of the definitive first edition of Frankenstein, which we have borrowed. We have chosen fifteen documents according to intellectual and aesthetic criteria, to provide fifteen glimpses into the diversity of medical thought and the highly non-linear history of scientific progress.

JB: Medicine, like any other discipline, advances by trial and error. Some knowledge has been forgotten, while others have taken different paths. The history of medicine spans several millennia, and we invite visitors to cross centuries and continents. Here, we present a form of medicine that was part and parcel of the confluence of many different forms of knowledge, including philosophy, astrology, religion and, in some cases, alchemy. Mystical or mysterious knowledge - perhaps far removed from our highly technological vision of medicine - that takes us back to an approach in which health and illness were part of a general understanding of nature. 

YG: We also hope to provoke reflection on modern developments and the very contemporary paradox of our societies, which are teetering between technological arch-development and a return to obscurantism. Like Paracelsus in his days, we find ourselves in a time when two conceptions of the world are facing each other. 

You are inaugurating an exhibition space at CMU quite different from the usual venues. Is this a constraint or an opportunity?

YG: It is a huge corridor, a place of passage, but with many qualities, including infinite walls that allow the paintings to unfold in a very uncluttered aesthetic. We chose a single panel format for a very short, unobtrusive format, while preserving the richness and beauty of the works. 

The choice of panels was difficult?

JB: The histories of medicine are many and varied. We wanted to give an idea of this diversity. The choice of documents was also dictated by aesthetic criteria, with an emphasis on illustrations. One exception is a treatise attributed to the great Greek physician Hippocrates, but dating from the 9^th century. It is written in Caroline, a script that disappeared during the Middle Ages before resurfacing with the invention of printing. It is astonishingly familiar to us because, in essence, our modern writing is its heir. 

And which one do you prefer?

JB: I'm particularly fond of a 15th-century document inspired by the Phenomena of Aratos of Soles, dating from the 3^rd century BC. Illness is inscribed within a wheel, representing the four humors and the twelve signs of the zodiac to form a personalized system of interpretation of illness, by virtue not only of the moods that prevail differently in each person, but also of their zodiacal ancestry. This is an extraordinary document, with particularly spectacular illustrations.

(Germanicus Julius Caesar)
Aratea

Naples, circa 1465 - 1469
Parchment
Codex Bodmer 7

YG: For my part, I really like the two characters used in the introductory panel, drawn from a danse macabre, a common theme in the Middle Ages. They look like they're straight out of a modern comic strip, but they represent a very medieval attitude, which constantly mixes serious subjects - war, plague, death - with buffoonish, even trivial, and therefore inevitably comic, manners. 

The doctor and death, from the Dance of Death (Totentanz), IncB 268.

Several illustrations leave Europe to explore other cultures

JB: The exhibition is particularly cosmopolitan, with an 18th-century illustration from Sumatra - a leporello on wood. We're also visiting Thailand, with an anatomical board showing all the pressure points for learning therapeutic massage techniques. Two Japanese documents are themselves cosmopolitan, as one depicts the death of Buddha in India, and the other celebrates the founder of Chinese medicine before he came to Japan. This blend of cultures underlines the exchanges and bridges involved in the construction of medical knowledge.

You end the exhibition with Frankenstein, an almost Genevan figure, but above all one of the first representatives of a medicine where pride takes precedence over ethics.

JB: This subject is at the heart of iEH2's teaching: the perils of failing to prepare tomorrow's doctors ethically and morally, as illustrated by Victor Frankenstein, an unreasonable doctor who sets out to give the spark of life to a creature made of parts of corpses. Written in Cologny in 1816 by the young Mary Shelley, the novel features a philosophical upheaval in which this uncontrolled and reckless doctor embodies a medicine that does not measure the consequences of its actions. Along with Faust, he represents the figure of the demiurge doctor in the myth of scientistic modernity.

If you were to redo the same exhibition in a hundred years' time, which panel would you add?

YG: No doubt the celebration of eternal youth. For the first time in human history, we're heading for a demographic decline with colossal repercussions. At the same time, the richest fringe of the population is dreaming of a transhuman society capable of freeing itself from biological realities. A fascinating and frightening theme.

JB: To answer “à la Borges”, we may have the perfect exhibition, but there won't be anyone left to come and see it. Or environmental contingencies simply won't allow us to print our panels. 

Back to the present: when will we have the pleasure of rediscovering the Martin Bodmer Foundation and its priceless treasures?

JB: Normally, on April 30, 2026. We're looking forward to welcoming the public back to a completely renovated, more energy-efficient and more accessible museum, so that all visitors, including those with disabilities, can come and discover the marvellous traces left by our ancestors.

Prof. Jacques Berchtold
Director,
Martin Bodmer Foundation

Yoann Givry
Scientific collaborator