[Chemistry at the Medical School of Paris (1853-1875)]

The Medical School of Paris was not immune from the movement of scientific thought which grew during the second half of the nineteenth century. Experimental practice had by then become the method of scientific thought. Any scientist worthy of the name was expected to follow the process of observation, analysis, experiment and synthesis: whether on the desk or in the mind,A science of experimentation par excellence, chemistry became an example of a scientific approach that medicine needed to appropriate to itself. Between 1853 and 1884, there was only one Professor of Chemistry at the Medical School of Paris. Charles Adolphe Wurtz was dean of the School from 1866 to 1875. This article aims to explain the impact of his teaching and his deanship on the importance of chemistry in medical studies.