Des réformés au chevet de leurs coreligionnaires : l’Infirmerie protestante de Lyon (1844-1970)

• Main Author: Emmanuel Jaussoin
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes (LARHRA UMR 5190) 2013-04-01
• Series: Chrétiens et Sociétés
• Subjects: Protestantism; Reveil; Infirmary; Medecine; Lyon
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/chretienssocietes/3297
• ISSN: 1257-127X; 1965-0809

There are many causes to the opening of a Protestant infirmary in Lyon in the mid-nineteenth century, more precisely in 1844. The first aim of the founders is to offer their coreligionists an alternative to the public hospital thought to be either too Catholic or too impersonal and dehumanized. Thereby, they have enjoyed a more favorable political environment to gain ground, that of medicine, traditionally held by Catholics. This denominational motivation couples with a social concern just as important. The founders, largely inspired by the religious awakening, which has also led them to breaking with the official Reformed Church, wanted to respond to the suffering of the poorest inhabitants, in the Lyons case, mainly that of the silk workers, without losing hope to generate conversions. The Protestant Infirmary is created by public figures who thus find a way to discharge of their social duty. In this sense, the directors and shareholders of the institution in the twentieth century emerged as the worthy heirs of their so much admired predecessors, always Protestant, often bourgeois and sometimes very committed. They also kept the pragmatism peculiar to this singular work, anxious to meet the evolving needs of their contemporaries, even away from the original model. The Protestant Infirmary of Lyon quickly welcomes sick patients neither Protestant nor poor, and its leaders are quickly confronted with more mundane, technical and economic requirements.