Location: 1, place Alphonse Laveran (5th arrondissement, RER: Port-Royal)
Telephone: 01-40-51-47-34 (Library) and 01-40-51-51-92 (Museum)
Email: bcssa.secretariat@evdg.org
Access: Contacting the library ahead of time is encouraged
Museum Website: https://www.defense.gouv.fr/sante/musee-du-service-sante-armees
Library Website: https://www.defense.gouv.fr/sante/bibliotheque-centrale-du-service-sante-armees
The museum of the French military health service is located in the former royal abbey of the Val-de-Grâce church and military hospital. Its collection focuses on military health personnel, war surgery and wax molds of First World War facial and cranial injuries (“gueules cassés”), underwater and aerospace medicine, military pharmacological expeditions, and the role of military health services in the civilian sphere. It is open to the public on Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoons (12pm–6pm). The museum is closed in August.
The military health service library is home to over 60,000 titles, and is also located at Val-de-Grâce. In 2014 the library also absorbed part of the archives of the Institut de médecine tropicale du service de santé des armées (IMTSSA, colloquially known as “Le Pharo”), previously located in Marseille.
The library catalogue may be consulted offsite, while some online resources are also freely accessible.