August 17, 1220 in Montpellier: and medicine was born!

On August 17, the University of Montpellier celebrated the 800th anniversary of its Faculty of Medicine. Eight centuries of history and progress have made this the oldest university medical school in the world. The anniversary was disrupted by the health crisis, but was nevertheless attended by the UM's academic, institutional and socio-economic partners, as well as representatives of the faculty and student body.

It was in the heat of a late summer afternoon, tempered by the coolness of its ancient stones, that the Faculty of Medicine celebrated its eight centuries of existence on August 17. Was the weather so nice in Montpellier on August 17, 1220? History doesn't tell us, but it does tell us that it was precisely on that day that Cardinal Conrad d'Urach, legate of Pope Honorius III, promulgated the Statutes of theUniversitas medicorum Montispessulani , thus marking Montpellier's entry into the history of medicine.

A story with a capital "H" which, in the year 2020, had to accommodate the contingencies of our particular current situation. Due to the health crisis, a limited audience of two hundred attended the commemoration held in the Atrium of the historic faculty. For just over an hour, academics and local elected representatives spoke, linking the institution's centuries-old tradition with a future now embodied by the new Arnaud de Villeneuve campus and its ultra-modern facilities.

A unique university

Sophie Béjean, Rectrice of the Occitanie academic region and Chancellor of the Universities, had the honor of unveiling the commemorative plaque on which students and visitors will be able to read: " OnAugust 17, 1220, Cardinal Conrad d'Ubach,legate of Pope Honorius III in Languedoc, decreedthe statutes of the Universitas medicorum, tam doctorum quam discipulorum, Montispessulani, the oldest medical university in the world ".

For Gérald Chanques, spokesman for the Association des 800 ans de la Faculté de médecine, this exergue "serves as a reminder that, since its foundation and the granting of its first statutes, the University of Montpellier has remained singular ". Indeed, born of the meeting of Christian and Jewish doctors under the strong influence of Arab medicine, it remained a purely medical university until the French Revolution. It opened up very early to dissection and the natural sciences, and developed a global vision of man in his environment, which would remain its hallmark even after the Revolution, during which the Convention retained - after the abolition of the universities - only three health schools, Paris, Strasbourg and Montpellier.

Universal medicine...

"It' s no coincidence that the oldest plant garden is in Montpellier," says Michel Mondain, Dean of the University of Montpellier-Nîmes. Montpellier was also the site of France's first "probably unofficial" dissection, carried out by Henri de Mondeville, and above all, "the first town where an edict stipulated that the town had to provide one cadaver per year from the gallows, and then two cadavers per year for teaching purposes", says the dean. An educational innovation...already!

As Thierry Lavabre Bertrand, vice-president of the University and chairman of the 800th anniversary organizing committee, reminded us, it was this openness that contributed so much to the discipline's entry into the pantheon of sciences: "What we' re celebrating is not simply the anniversary of a Faculty of Medicine. We're celebrating the day when, for the first time,medicine wasconsidered ascience, a body of knowledge, on a par with philosophy, law... with a universal scope ".

Anchored in its territory

Universality and humanism are the two pillars of this faculty, which Rabelais, a student in Montpellier in his day, summed up in his famous phrase: " Science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul ". A strong identity which, over the centuries, has become that of an entire city, as Philippe Augé, President of the UM, was keen to point out, emphasizing the essential place occupied today by the University at the heart of its territory. " Montpellier would not have developed as much without its university, and the university has been able to flourish in this city. A university owes its reputation, of course, to its international rankings, but also to its local presence.

A statement that will resonate in the ears of the 3,000 new Carabins who, following in the footsteps of illustrious predecessors such as Nostradamus, Lapeyronie and Rondelet, have once again chosen the Montpellier-medicine pairing to project their future into the year 2020. A future under the banner of innovation and excellence, where modernity never cancels out heritage.