Abstract
“General hospitals” for the care of the helpless poor, the aged and infirm, lunatics and idiots, which were developed in the mid-17th century by Louis XIV of France, soon spread to the colony in New France. Francois Charon, a wealthy businessman, built the Hôpital Général de Ville Marie, Montreal, which was opened in 1694 to care for impoverished and helpless men.
The Hospital Register, discovered in the Archives of the Soeurs Grises, Montreal, provides details of the patients’ names, dates of and reasons for admission and the dates of discharge or death. An analysis of the Register, covering the 45 years of the Charon period, reveals that among the 66 boys and men admitted, from 1694 to 1738, at least seven inmates suffered from some form of mental disorder or retardation. This suggests that the Hôpital Général de Ville Marie, together with the Hôpital Général de Québec, were the first Canadian institutions to provide care for the mentally disordered.
Pierre Chevallier, who was retarded, lived in the hospital for 44 years until his death at the age of 85. The length of stay in the hospital indicates that the early settlers of New France were men of robust constitution and that the regime provided by the Frères Charon was physically as well as spiritually sustaining.