[The arrival of the "grand pox" at the hôtel-Dieu de Lyon]

Founded in 542, the Hospital hôtel-Dieu in Lyons is considered as the oldest French Hospital. At the beginning it was a place to receive and assist the poor and pilgrims and in the middle of the XVth century it received infectious patients during some epidemic periods. As King Charles VIII came back from Naples his troops suffering from syphilis arrived in Lyons in October 1495 and were treated in the Hospital hôtel-Dieu so that it became the first French Hospital to treat syphilitic patients. On the 7th of July 1496, a request of the "Consulat" gave the first information mentioned about syphilitic soldiers in Lyons and the well-known French physician Symphorien Champier was the first to publish about syphilis. For three centuries the Hospital hôtel-Dieu tried to move away syphilitic patients and it succeeded in 1802 as the Hospital L'Antiquaille was built.