À bras-le-corps ! Savants et instruments au Collège de France au ^XIXe century

The exhibition is free, open to all, Monday to Friday, 10   to 19   , except on public holidays.

SPECIAL OPENING HOURS: SATURDAYS JUNE8, 15, 22, 29 AND JULY 6.

The exhibition highlights the research carried out since the ^19th century at the Collège de France to measure, understand and care for the human and animal body.

It features a selection of some fifty historical scientific instruments held at the Collège de France, supplemented by loans from several institutions. The exhibition presents an original history of experimental science from the French Revolution to 1920, at the crossroads of physics, physiology and psychology, which finds contemporary resonance not only in scientific research, but also in representations and practices of the body.

Several major figures are featured in spaces that recreate the atmosphere of a laboratory. Visitors can reconstruct Claude Bernard's experiments on liver glycemia. They can reproduce the decomposition of movement explored by Étienne-Jules Marey and discover the principles of biomechanics thanks to his smoke machine. They'll learn how the medical electricity advocated by Arsène d'Arsonval, a prolific inventor, worked. They can also explore the expression of emotions through the photographs of Charles-Émile François-Franck, or the measurement of voice and hearing by René Marage and Abbé Rousselot.

The analysis of muscular effort, observed on athletes at the 1900 Olympic Games and then measured by Józefa Joteyko, will give an insight into the interest of these scientists in physical education, while composer Marie Jaëll's work on the agility of pianists' fingers will show how the instruments created at the Collège have been used in many fields.

Around the scientists, a multitude of other players appear: audiences, assistants, instrument manufacturers, industrialists, academics, politicians, not forgetting civil society which, through its therapeutic hopes and militant commitments, is far from insensitive to the science being developed in the laboratories of the Collège de France.

A gallery of instruments will reveal more about the manufacturers, indispensable allies of Collège de France scientists engaged in experimentation. Over the course of the ^19th century, these " artist-builders " became engineers trained at prestigious schools, and were at the origin of several major industrial companies in the ^20th century.

Texts and objects, as well as a wide range of interactive features, enable the exhibition " À bras-le-corps ! " to present a rich and varied picture of science in the making - an image as valid for the long ^19th century as it is for our own time.

Practical information

The exhibition is free and open to the public from April 25 to July 12 2024, Monday to Friday (closed on weekends and public holidays), from 10 h to 19 h. It takes place at the Marcelin-Berthelot site of the Collège de France, 11 place Marcelin Berthelot - 75005 Paris.

SPECIAL OPENING HOURS: SATURDAYS JUNE8, 15, 22, 29 AND JULY 6.

The exhibition tour is accessible to people with reduced mobility.

Mediation

To help you discover the exhibition, we offer a range of mediation services:

• Guided tours with an interpreter for school groups (primary, secondary and higher education) : reservation for school groups
• Guided tours for adults with a mediator.
• Flash tours with a mediator, focusing on a key object in the exhibition (30 min).

Lectures

Five freelectures, open to the public without reservation, are offered to extend the discovery of the exhibition :

• Tuesday, April 30 at 6 pm h : Antoine Compagnon - Overview of scientific chairs at the Collège de France during the ^19th century.
• Wednesday, May 15 at 6 pm h : Maria Tortajada - Du corps dans les dispositifs mareysiens. From experiment to results.
• Tuesday, May 28 at 18 h : Pierre Corvol - What we owe today to Claude Bernard.
• Wednesday, June 5 at 18 h : Alain Prochiantz - Claude Bernard et les sciences du vivant : un malentendu persistant.
• Wednesday, June 26 at 18 h : Martina Schiavon - Les constructeurs d'instruments scientifiques aux alentours du Collège de France (^XVIIIe-XIXe siècle), une histoire encore à écrire.

Credits and partners

The exhibition is organized by the Collège de France with the support of the Ministry of Culture - Direction régionale des affaires culturelles d'Île-de-France, in partnership withL'Histoire, Bastille Magazine and Pour la Science.

This project has been accredited by Paris 2024 as part of the Cultural Olympiad.

Curated by : Jean Dalibard, Professor at the Collège de France, and Jérôme Baudry, Assistant Professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne.

Exhibition project team : Violette Batailley, Jérôme Baudry, Alain Berthoz, Sabine Cassard, Anne Chatellier, Pierre Corvol, Jean Dalibard, Igor Dotsenko, Coralie Dubus, Claire Guttinger, Ronan Le Guen, Marylène Meston de Ren, Ion-Gabriel Mihailescu, Fanny Pauthier, Lucie Robert, Arnaud Roffignon, Florence Terrasse-Riou, Céline Vautrin, Marc Verdure and Sophie Wierniezky.

Scientific mediation : Imane Bouzidi, Céline Padiolleau.

Documentation and iconographic research : Jérôme Baudry, Anne Chatellier, Pierre Corvol, Claire Guttinger, Ronan Le Guen, Ion-Gabriel Mihailescu and Lucie Robert.

Scenography : Nicolas Franchot and Stéphane Rébillon.

Exhibition catalog :
Edition : Fanny Pauthier, with the collaboration of Marion Razakariasa and Céline Vautrin.
Graphics : Guillaume Cassar.
Layout : Élisabeth Gutton and Fanny Pauthier.
Communication documents : Guillaume Cassar.
Photographs from the Collège de France collection : Patrick Imbert and Frédérique Paillades.

The Collège de France would like to express its sincere thanks to all lenders :
Association du Musée hospitalier régional de Lille,
Bibliothèque de l'Académie de médecine,
Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF),
Bibliothèque nationale universitaire de Strasbourg (BNUS),
Institut national de la propriété industrielle (INPI),
IUT CACHAN- Université Paris-Saclay,
AP-HP Museum,
Musée des Arts et Métiers - Le Cnam,
Musée Claude-Bernard, Saint-Julien-en-Beaujolais,
Musée de la médecine, Université Paris-Cité,
Olympic Museum, Lausanne,
MusX, École polytechnique,
Claude-Bernard University, Lyon,
And to Mr. Serge Nicolas, Honorary Professor at Paris-Cité University, Director of the History of Psychology Museum at the Institute of Psychology, who kindly lent works from his private collection.

Caption for illustration :Course de l'homme, chronophotography by Étienne-Jules Marey, 1880-1890. Archives du Collège de France, 3 PV 128