Disorder and Disease: The Hôpital-Général of Quebec, 1693-1799

FAIN: FT-285621-22

Mary Corley Dunn
St. Louis University (St. Louis, MO 63103-2097)

Writing one chapter of a book examining the founding and expanding mission of Quebec’s hôpital-général in the 18th century.

This project focuses on the hôpital-général of Quebec, founded in 1692 as a refuge for the unfortunate poor. Over the course of the French regime in Canada, the mandate of Quebec’s hôpital-général expanded to include all kinds of marginal colonial subjects, from unmarried pregnant women to orphaned children to Huguenot Protestants to the mentally ill, those with contagious diseases, and the physically disabled. I undertake to write a history of this early modern institution, attending particularly to the role of religion in giving shape to the hospital across time and in the conceptual apparatus that enabled and sustained it over the long course of the eighteenth century.