Une maison d’éducation médicalisée conçue par un neuropsychiatre au dix-neuvième siècle

Abstract

At the end of the nineteenth century, replacing a prison term for youthful offenders by a period of education and care was something new. This idea was supported in the years 1880-1890 at the Paris Conseil General by Henri Thulié, both consultant and psychiatrist. For Thulié, no youthful offender should be punished ; most of these offenders should receive a medical treatment. Since mental pathologies are like an alienation of a subject's freedom, education must be fully integrated to the psychiatric part of the medical project, keeping in mind that knowledge is freedom. He succeeds in getting his colleagues’ votes for the construction in Montesson (Paris-suburbs) of an institute where his ideas would be tested. Institutions being organized according to the binary alternative medical/educational, this place, after several transformations, is now called “centre hospitalier Théophile Roussel”.