Adult portrait audioguides

Have you heard of the giants Pantagruel and   Gargantua? Well I published them here   in Lyon between 1533 and 1535 when I was a physician at the Hôtel-Dieu. That was in the old hospital dating from the middle ages which no longer exists. Unfortunately because I spent more time writing than tending my patients, the rectors sacked me for abandoning my duties. My works were censored by Sorbonne University, but that didn't stop me writing, nor from becoming one   of the greatest physicians in the kingdom. In fact king Francis 1 of France was a great supporter of my humanist writings.    

I think you asked to see the architect of the vast facade? Well I’m the   architect, Soufflot. I may look young, but I assure you I am not his   assistant. It's true that I am only 27 and I just finished studying in Rome.   This facade was to make me famous in all of Lyon, where I constructed   buildings on the new banks of the Rhône, and later a theatre in 1753. I then   went to Paris where I could serve the King as his Controller of Buildings. He   even asked me to build the Panthéon in Paris. But I always remained true to   my motto, "nature is my only master in art".     

My white coif and black habit bear witness to my position. I am a servant of the   Hôtel-Dieu, a hospital sister. My name is Sister Pila, but I never took my   vows and I am subject to no ecclesiastical authority. A situation that is very specific to Lyon. I serve the sick every day God has given me, but I could have married or left the hospital whenever I wanted. I chose to live in the hospital for almost 80 years, in the 18th century. It was only in 1933 that my order became a religious order.    

I heard you would like to talk to a rector. Let me introduce myself, my name is   César Laure. I do apologise for my Italian accent, but I was born in Milan. I moved to Lyon to expand my silk trading business. Like the other 5 rectors   with whom I managed Hôtel-Dieufrom 1618 to 1620, I come from a wealthy family   and was elected for two years. In fact, I designed the four-wing hospital   that you may have seen in the Cloisters courtyard. It is partly thanks to me   that the hospital was built, because, like the other rectors, I donated a   handsome amount to the hospital when my appointment as rector was over. Some   rectors were even ruined for it, when the Hôtel-Dieuhad no money left in its coffers.    

I'm  delighted to meet you. My name is Etienne Destot, radiologist, sculptor and   inventor. I heard that you can't move your wrist? Follow me, we'll take a   closer look at it in my surgery of radiology. One of the first of its kind in   France. It is nothing like the scanners you see now, but in 1896 x-rays had   just been discovered. Sit down there.   You are lucky because I'm a wrist specialist. We are going to use one of my   stereoscopes to look more closely at your wrist. Did you know that this is   the ancestor of 3D images? Don't listen for a moment, just look at my hands.   I know, they were irradiated. In the past, we didn't protect ourselves. But   it didn't prevent me becoming a sculptor or examining you. And that's what   matters after all.    

You  are probably wondering what we are doing here. The hospital Hôtel-Dieu has   nothing to do with a cinema. We are   here because apart from inventions in photography, we also invented devices   for the sick. My brother Louis   invented a mechanical prosthetic hand for the war wounded. 5,000 of these   hands were produced. As for me, I developed the Lumière tulle   gras dressing, a type of bandage that is often   used on burns and that can be taken off without pulling off skin.    

Our names are posted at the entrance to institutes that are known throughout the world. But if you had come here at the start of the 20th century you would probably have bumped into us. I am Léon Bérard, the pioneer of thoracic surgery. I was one of the first to use radium in the fight against cancer back in 1917 and I founded the second cancer centre in France in 1923. And I am Marcel Mérieux, a student of Louis Pasteur. In the attics of the Passage de l'Hôtel-DieuI developed the first anti-tetanus serums. The Mérieux laboratories were founded under this roof.