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This article proposes to sketch a brief portrait of the fields of knowledge in literature and the medical humanities insofar as the links between the two are seen as both crucial and controversial. Crucial because the very development of the medical humanities first depended on the the reading and analysis of literary texts in pre-med courses—a tendency henceforth institutionalized with the sub-field of narrative medicine. Controversial because the idea of literature in service to medicine and health revived polemics on the instrumentalization of the arts by the sciences. Now that the medical humanities have become an essential field well beyond the English-speaking world, it seems necessary to further question their links to literary studies. We will do this here by suggesting that these links, in their consensual acceptances and pedagogical renewals, remain contained and limited by a false dichotomy, that of a health of literature opposed to a health in literature, where the former manifests as ethics (applicable to other fields), and the latter as poetics (limited to questions of language and aesthetics).

In a medical consultation where the treatment is not postponed but is rather made on «the spot,» where the needles of the acupuncturist replace the medical doctor's medicines, what is the place granted to the body, to the word of the patient and to his emotions in the construction of «his disease» and what are the impacts for his therapeutic care? Does this medical practise propose another model of narrative of the troubles and the disease? Beyond the results of the study themselves, this article tries to assess the impact of the film making as a mode of anthropological knowledge as well as the heuristics possibilities that film offers for an anthropology of the therapeutic practices in a clinical context. We shall endeavour to go further in this field of visual anthropology which remains still largely uninvestigated.

Interdisciplinary dialogue that take place between the various domains of human experience can manifest itself in many forms. For exemple, it is well known that different percolation processes have often taken place between arts and science. What are, in contemporary theatre, the recent manifestations of this astonishing process? What can emerge from that kind of amalgam? While observing what became central in Jean-Pierre Ronfard's creative process, we will discuss here some of the many possibilities offered by that percolation. Seeing a "secret bond" between theatre and physiology, Ronfard has integrated to his practice and to his reflection some of Claude Bernard's principles of experimental physiology. While analysing some of Ronfard's theatrical experimentation—Les objets parlent, Autour de Phèdre, La voix d'Orphée—we will examine how this inventive interdisciplinary appropriation allows him to perpetrate the delicate fusion of theoric reflection and artistic practice.

AbstractThe final decades of the 19th century have become known as a period of important transition in the medical world. New discoveries revolutionized the way diseases were seen and fought. Germs, not miasmas, caused disease and sanitary measures of prevention not miracle treatments controlled them. The articles in l'Union médicale du Canada, from 1872 to 1900 concerning typhoid fever reveal that doctors rapidly accepted some important innovations. However, when it came to innovations refuting their former theories or risking to jeopardize their popularity with the public, certain doctors hesitated to adopt the new theories. This study presents the coexistance of new ideas with the older ideas, which continued to be presented, sometimes years after important discoveries. This paper looks at how they were finally won over to the newer ideas.

AbstractHow do the first texts of 19th century Quebec literature, L'Influence d'un livre by Philippe-Aubert de Gaspé fils (1837) and the Mémoires de Pierre de Sales Laterrière (written around 1812 and published in 1873) make the shifts between medical knowledge and fictional narration? The present article will attempt to answer this question through a study of the characters as intellectual figures (alchemists, magicians, students, doctors and charlatans), the symbolic and narratological importance of the Book, knowledge and popular literature and finally the connection between the history of medicine and autobiography in Laterrière's writing.

This article highlights issues that have marked propositions of legislative change occurring in a number of countries. By showing the type of transformations taking place, we can better articulate the medical and social context from which the question of euthanasia arises. A final section underlines the principal arguments used in the debate as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, it suggests that no argument is entirely convincing; rather each contains an essential richness if those who are dying are to be respected as human beings.

Keywords: euthanasie, droit, éthique, histoire, euthanasia, legal, ethic, history

In his book, Réflexion éthique et pratiques soignantes – Points de repère (Ethical reflection and care practices – Landmarks), Christian Gilioli describes the evolution of medicine and ethics the associated questions of a philosophical, scientific, technological, social, economic and political nature. He proposes further reflections pertaining to the complexity of contemporary ethics in the modern world continuously in search of happiness and health, and in denial of ageing and suffering.

Keywords: éthique contemporaine, pratiques soignantes, évolution de la médecine, personne, développement technologique, contemporary ethics, care practices, evolution of medicine, person, technological development

The question of "terminal sedation" due to existential suffering raises many debates in palliative circles. To shed light on this debate, I sought to identify the orientation of these discussions and to discern what they tell us about the relationship of medicine to the suffering of people at the end of life. So, I first examined the vocabulary. Then, I analyzed the concept of total pain that Cicely Saunders, the founder of palliative care, had developed. Subsequently I tried to identify the reasons why this concept no longer seems to meet current needs. Finally, I propose some working orientations to make existential suffering the heart of end-of-life care.