John:
My first thought when I see the name is always that Hotel-Dieu seems somewhat pessimistic for a place that is supposed to cure you. I guess the idea is that God is doing the curing, but it also kind of implies that you will be seeing God soon, and that's not really a good reputation for a hospital to have, is it?
In any case, this modest exhibit covered two floors, as well as some interesting displays of early Canadian medical implements. They have a fine collection of glass nose douches, by the way, if you are feeling stuffed up...
Like most museums, the exhibit starts by situating the visitor in the history of the place. So the first few bits were about Montreal history, Paul Chomedy de Maisonneuve, and Jeanne Mance. One historical fun fact is the existence of the "Society of Notre Dame de Montreal for the Conversion of Savages." Love the modesty there.
The exhibit got more interesting when we moved past the cloister, into the inner sanctum of the sisters' lives. We were greeted by a mannequin decked out in nun's gear. The problem is, most mannequins are made to sell clothes, so she had a kind of sultry look on her face, as if she had a much more interesting storefront job going underneath that habit. Anyway, it was freaky.
The cell, as the sisters' rooms were called, was really very much a cell. I have to wonder, as slight as my feminist leanings are, whether this whole sisterhood thing was just a way for the Catholic Church to lock up the women so they wouldn't tempt good Christian men with their wiles. Yeah, that sounds about right. On the bright side, though, a very fun name card on the door:
Jesus! Yay! The ceremony to become a nun is very much like a wedding, which makes sense, since the idea was that you were marrying the Church, or Christ, as it were.
Just outside the cell was the bar. It was not that kind of bar, of course, but a pharmaceutical bar. No, not that kind of pharmaceutical, either. Wine was still kept as one of the healing products, though. And the bar itself was quite nice, a colourful painted glass:
The second floor was much more clinical and historical. The numbers of patients and the names of doctors were recorded as though they were graduates of (the same) great school. The doctors' tools, hopelessly out of date now, must have been objects of much pride and debate, too, at the time. But the exhibit finishes where it started, with the sisters, now part of the governmental bureaucracy, the hospital administration having been mostly handed over to the authorities, and all the nurses having gone through school, instead of just the convent. The exhibit ties back to Montreal history, too, with a few words on the development of the public health care system.
Miriam will have her post up soon!
