LAURENT Louis (EN)
Biographical article
Dr Louis Laurent graduated from the École Principale du Service de Santé de la Marine. He completed his doctoral thesis under the direction of the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in Bordeaux, Professor Albert Pitres (1848–1928), who was trained as a neurologist, and obtained the highest grades in his graduating class in 1893. As Médecin de la Marine (naval doctor), he travelled to Indochina that year, became the Head Doctor of the ambulance services of the city of Soc Trang, then provost of the military hospital of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly called Saigon), and lastly, the city of Can Tho. After briefly returning to France in 1896, he travelled to Indochina the following year, having been appointed Médecin Aide Major in the Annamite Tirailleur Regiment, and was subsequently responsible for the health service of the cities of Ho Chi Minh (Saigon), Bien Hoa, and Thu Dau Mot. In May 1900, he was posted to the mission in the Upper Donai and the construction of Saigon’s railways. Returning to France in January 1901, he was promoted to the rank of first-class doctor in December. In March 1903, he returned to Ho Chi Minh, where he travelled on board the French battleship Le Sully, which sank in February 1905. Dr Laurent returned to France for the last time and died from amoebic dysentery three days after disembarking in Marseille.
The collection
The École Principale du Service de Santé de la Marine, generally known as the École de Santé Navale, was established in Bordeaux in 1890. At the time it trained the future doctors and pharmacists who served overseas in the French colonies. The young ‘navalais’ (the École’s students) also attended courses on tropical pathology at the nearby Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy. Once they became military doctors, posted on missions in the French colonies, some of them contributed to enriching the collections of the recently established Musée de Pathologie Exotique et d’Études Coloniales (the present-day Musée d’Ethnographie in the University of Bordeaux (MEB)). In fact, Dr Laurent regretted his lack of experience of the local culture when he was posted to Indochina. Once he was established, he decided that in addition to the usual anatomical samples and medical materials he would send back ethnographic objects that illustrated practices and skills documented in the field. The idea was to help students and future graduates to understand a culture they were relatively or completely unfamiliar with before taking up their posts abroad. Hence, Dr Laurent became the first of the privileged ‘navalais’ to contribute to the collections of the Musée d’Ethnographie (MEB).
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