[14147] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FYIFrance: medical libraries, era of la poudre blanche
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Kessler)
Mon Oct 15 19:08:16 2001
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 11:59:07 -0700
From: Jack Kessler <kessler@WELL.COM>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-to: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
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FYIFrance: medical libraries, era of la poudre blanche
Now that nuts are sending envelopes of white powder to France as
well, to the Colle`ge de France among other places apparently --
4 Paris locations are reporting "la poudre blanche" in their
morning mail today, as is the chancellor's office in Germany -- I
thought people here might be interested in seeing some medical /
health libraries in France: places to find accurate answers to at
least the medical / health aspects of all this "anthrax" madness
--
* Paris, Bibliothe`que interuniversitaire de me'decine (BIUM)
--W3: http://www.bium.univ-paris5.fr/
--postal: 12 rue de l'Ecole de Me'decine, 75270 Paris cedex 06
--t. 40.46.19.60, fx. 44.41.10.20
--60,000 works 16th - 19th c.; theses since 1539; historic theses
from Montpellier and Strasboug; provincial theses to 1985;
foreign theses; 20,800 periodicals titles including 4,000
current; fonds dentaire 10,000 works, 2,000 periodicals titles,
30,000 theses.
--Counts: "La BIUM posse`de environ 18,000 collections de
pe'riodiques, du XVIIe sie`cle a` nos jours. Elle rec,oit
actuellement 4,000 pe'riodiques en cours de publication, qui
repre'sentent environ 30,000 fascicules par an. Elle est la seule
a` posse'der en France une bonne partie de ces collections, et la
mise a` disposition du public de son catalogue a` travers le Web
est une des priorite's de 1997. Dans ce but, nous travaillons
actuellement a` l'e'laboration d'un acce`s direct a` la base de
donne'es des pe'riodiques."
--Outstanding online introduction to the history and collections
of some of the oldest and most famous medical and research
libraries in France. Online image collections, fonds ancien,
announcements and online catalogs, all in a process of rapid
development and growth. Subscribers please see also FYI France
ejournal issue of April 15, 1998 at http://www.fyifrance.com .
* Bibliothe`que interuniversitaire de Pharmacie / BIUP
--W3: http://www.biup.univ-paris5.fr/
--Minitel: 3617BIUP
--t. 43.29.12.08 poste 421
--postal: 4, avenue de l'Observatoire 75005 Paris
--Counts: "Posse`de environ 100,000 ouvrages, the`ses, brochures
et publications de laboratoires et plus de 4,000 titres de
pe'riodiques dont pre`s de 1,000 sont en cours."
* Centre de documentation et d'information en e'thique des
sciences de la vie et de la sante' -- INSERM / Institut national
de la sante' et de la recherche me'dicale. Bibliothe`que
--W3: http://dicdoc.kb.inserm.fr:2010/basiscdei/cdei.html
--email: http://mailto:cdei@kb.inserm.fr
--t. 44.42.48.35; fx. 44.42.48.41, 44.42.48.34
--postal: 71, rue St Dominique 75007 Paris
--Bioethique -- Acce`s libre, mais il est conseille' de prendre
rendez - vous -- "La bibliothe`que offre un fonds d'environ 3,500
ouvrages et une centaine de pe'riodiques dans le domaine de
l'e'thique des sciences de la vie et de la sante' et les
disciplines connexes : me'decine, droit, philosophie. La
consultation se fait sur place au CDEI, il n'y a pas de
pre^t. Une photocopieuse est mise a` disposition des
lecteurs. Elle fonctionne avec une carte valable pour 100 ou 200
copies, a` acheter sur place."
--There are going to be bioethical issues -- at least about the
availability of vaccines and information -- and about
prioritization, of the vaccines and information which are
available...
--The French just have been through their long and very painful
"affaire de sang contamine'e", so their medical ethics literature
is filled with discussions of many of the relevant issues, none
of which are simple. For example, the US government currently has
enough Anthrax vaccine stockpiled to inoculate perhaps 2 million
of its 285 million people... it thinks... -- shades of Peter
Sellers' Dr. Strangelove, calculating how long "certain
government and military leaders" might survive a nuclear
holocaust, protected in underground bunkers, and what that
selected few might require in order to survive...
* Institut Pasteur. Me'diathe`que
--W3: http://www.pasteur.fr/units/biblio/
--W3: catalog -- http://catalogue.biblio.pasteur.fr/catalogue/
--t. 45.68.82.80; fx. office, 40.61.30.48; fx. Inter - Library
Lending, 40.61.33.76
--postal: Bibliothe`que Centrale, Centre d'Information
Scientifique, Institut Pasteur, 28 rue du Docteur Roux, 75724
Paris Cedex 15
--Counts: 230,000 volumes, 30,000 titles; 2,400 periodicals, 850
current -- "Microbiologie, virologie, immunologie, biologie
mole'culaire et biochimie"; the listing of which hardly does
justice to the global pre - eminence of this institute in all of
these fields. W3 sites available in English.
If you are thinking of contacting any of these folks, well, up
until last week I would have suggested sending them a postal
letter, "in good French, handwritten if possible...", on the
theory that French formal correspondence still was clinging to
"the old ways" and would not reply to faxes, fone calls, email,
etc., particularly if these latter carried communications in
abrupt and aggressive non - French accents.
But this week and going forward I no longer am so certain. It
seems that Senator Tom Daschle just has received one of those "la
poudre blanche" missives -- as have now, in France, the Colle`ge
de France, the Caisse des De'po^ts et Consignations, the
Tre'sorerie Publique du 13e Arrondissement, and the CNES / Centre
National d'Etudes Spatiales at Evry (Essonne) -- and French
Minister of Health Dr. Bernard Kouchner just has re - launched
the production there of the smallpox vaccine...
So I expect that correspondents in France may be more interested
in receiving your email, than your "postal letter", from now
on... French cultural preferences for letter - writing perhaps
will go the way of the horse - and - buggy and the scrivener,
finally, not because of the much - feared American technology
juggernaut but because of these nuts and their bugs. Penmanship
out / digitization in, but who would have thunk for this reason?
Anthrax in French, incidentally, is "la bacte'rie de la maladie
du charbon" -- bacillus anthracis in the Latin, "anthrax" being
the Greek for carbuncle or coal, as in "anthracite". And it has
another French connection, having been a disease studied by
Pasteur, when he first was figuring out how diseases are
transmitted -- the blood of sheep dead from the disease turned
black, "like carbon" --
"Pasteur de'couvre le secret de la contagion en e'tudiant
une maladie: la maladie du charbon. Beaucoup de moutons
meurent et leur sang devient noir comme du charbon..."
http://www.chez.com/ecolemarsac/vaccins.htm -- this is
from the excellent Website of the students of l'Ecole
Primaire Henri Jacquement, of Marsac sur l'Isle, 24430
France -- in the Dordogne, just downriver from Pe'rigueux
-- see also,
http://www.louisville.edu/library/ekstrom/special/pasteur/cohn.html
So it seems that Yeats was right, and bits of history do repeat
and turn us back upon ourselves "in the widening gyre". The poet
said,
...somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun...
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
Why did he _have_ to put in that bit about "sands of the
desert"...
And here we are again, 150 years after Pasteur, wondering about
the cosmic connections between deserts, the transmission of
smallpox -- we thought we'd killed that one for good -- and
Pasteur's sheep.
--oOo--
FYI France (sm)(tm) e-journal ISSN 1071 - 5916
*
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--hjlm--
