Stage one of the holidays: high excitement and energy is now over and as I had managed to acquire yet another virus I was looking forward to stage two: lounging around home relaxing only doing a small amount of activities. That was pretty much how this week has been, pretty chill. Despite this there are a couple of things of note. On Monday we all piled into the car and headed to "hotel dieu des hospices de Beaune” which is a public hospital founded in the 15th century by Nicolas Rolin designed to provide healthcare to the poor who normally would be unable to afford it. Run by nuns and supported by King Louis, the King of France it is a one of a kind establishment that was for many hundreds of years the only hospital in France that provided free health care to the poor. When I get around to uploading pictures you will see that the hospital itself is a magnificent structure and since its creation it has been financially independent, probably the main reason it has stayed open over the years, even having a wing operational to the general public today! When it was created it had 30 beds available for use by the generally public as well as a large church and a self contained physicians practice and chemist. It was super interesting having a look at some of the medicines and medical devices they used back
in the 15th century compared to what dad uses today. One thing that really stood out to me the the drill that they used to drill a hole in the skull of the mentally ill, thank god for the modern medicine of today! Some of the medicines they used were also pretty nasty, there was basically a pickled and powdered version of most animals they have in France as well as all sorts of interesting looking plants… They also had a timeline presentation of the advancement of medicine over the years which I found very intriguing. Other than that outing there haven’t been any others this week, I have been continuing with my football and managed to run to the top of the Chateau Chalon for the first time this morning which was quite an achievement as I struggled to walk up it when I arrived!
