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The French colonization of nineteenth century Vietnam occurred at a moment when the domination/exploitation of the country coincided with the triumph of biomedicine in European health policies and the growth of the Western pharmaceutical industry. In this context, an analysis of the roles of traditional sino-vietnamese medicine affords an excellent opportunity to examine the meeting of two very different medical systems. Although at first denounced by colonial authorities and French doctors as a deadly poison to be avoided at all costs, over time, the continuing presence of sino-vietnamese medicine in French-dominated Vietnam came to reveal variety of practices and realities associated with a complex and ambiguous medicalization process, one very difficult to control from above. The vestiges of this ambiguity remain visible in multicultural Western societies and in Asian societies even today.

Keywords: médicament, remède traditionnel, colonisation, médicalisation, Viêtnam, pharmaceuticals, traditional drugs, colonialism, medicalization, Vietnam

René Théophile Hyacinthe Laennec undertook the translation of the Treatise on Acute and Chronic Diseases from Caelius Aurelianus. Based on the edition of his manuscript established in 2009, I will provide the reader with an interpretation of Laennec's endeavour within his practice as a clinician. Leaving aside his appreciation and personal interest in classics, I will emphasize his reading and translation of ancient texts, which lay the foundation for a history of the clinic, as rooted in his methodological and epistemological approach, at a time when medical practice was submitted to major redefinitions. Laennec's project, taking historical testimonies as components of a written and experimental data for diagnosis, allows us to draw analogies with some contemporary issues.

The massive increase in the number of women entering medicine in Quebec may help modify the role and status of the medical profession. Women may encourage the humanization of this professional role ; they may also contribute to an increase in the number of salaried physicians and accentuate the segmentation of the profession between general and specialized care fields. Until now most of the studies about women in medicine were empirically based and did not make it possible to outline meso and macrosystemic factors which must be taken into account in the acquisition and evolution of this highly institutionalized professional role. In this paper, the author presents a framework based on symbolic interactionism theory to analyse the process of acquiring the physician's role. The conceptual framework identifies factors influencing the acquisition of this professional role by women and leads to a better understanding of the issues underlying the massive entry of women in medicine.

Located at the edges of Equatorial Rainforest of Congo, the Mbindo Lala Hospital has the appearance of a small village comprised of thirty huts typically for patients and their families. This article describes the daily life of this hospital-village with a focus on highlighting the philosophy of Ngbandi medicine and healers, which structures care practices in the hospital-village. Similarly, the author shows how the social structure and the cultural universe of Angbandi are incorporated in this hospital-village with therapeutic activities organized around three altars (one for the ancestors, another for the spirits of the forest and water, and one to block witchcraft activities), all places where patients gather each day to receive their treatment. It is within the horizon of a politics of authenticity, put forward by President Mobutu between 1972 and 1977, that the status of the village hospital and, more broadly, medicine and healers are discussed. Further, the limits associated with the politics of valorization of a Zairian therapeutic tradition are underlined.

Keywords: Bibeau, Zaïre (Congo), politique de l'authenticité, guérisseur traditionnel, village-hôpital, Ngbandi, Bibeau, Zaïre (Congo), Politics of Authenticity, Traditional Healer, Hospital-Village, Ngbandi, Bibeau, Zaire (Congo), política de la autenticidad, curandero tradicional, aldea-hospital, Ngbandi

The overall purpose of this text is to show that the study of parallel therapies requires an interdisciplinary methodology, due to the very fact that such therapies use epistemological models other than those of classical science. For this author, however, her approach is not to suggest specific research procedures. Her intent is rather to underscore the necessity, for sociology and all the human sciences, of taking account of the epistemological questioning and gaps admitted by the so-called hard sciences, and of integrating these. In this respect, the recourse to parallel medicine is an especially pertinent subject for study, for it places at the very core of these questions of meaning the relationship between the "imperative to know" as proposed by the bio-medical model and the concept of "human diversity" as understood by anthropological research.

The aim of this paper is to examine the considerations on stochastic arts in Antiquity and to show how Galen's analysis concerning the “art of conjecturing” constitutes a preferable alternative to the traditional ways used by philosophers to explain the inherent fallibility in the medical art. By distinguishing the scientific diagnosis from the conjectural one, Galen encompasses all cases relevant to the medical art. The former, because of its general nature, can be theorized. As for the latter, it concerns only the individual and is therefore not likely to enter the theory, except by the method that makes it possible. This paper attempts to outline the modus operandi underlying the technical conjecture in order to illustrate Galen's deftly developed position on a subject almost exclusively investigated by philosophers until then.