Location: Château de Vincennes (Metro: Château de Vincennes; RER: Vincennes)
Telephone: 01-41-93-43-90
Access: permission must be secured in advance; documents must be ordered at least 2 weeks in advance
Website address: http://www.servicehistorique.sga.defense.gouv.fr/?lang=fr
The French Defense Historical Service (SHD) archive contains material on medical aeronautical and aerospace research (Centre d’études et de recherches de médecine aéronautique et spatiale, 1945–1986), as well as documents pertaining to the naval health service (Services sanitaires de la marine, 1675–2000).
The Service historique de l’armée de terre (SHAT) includes material on the applied sciences, including medicine, in series M, as well as medical, surgical, pharmacological, and verterinary medicine reference works in series OR (ouvrages de référence). For more records pertaining to the land army, please consult the Val-de-Grâce military hospital and library. (LINK HERE).
Personnel medical and operating theatre records, including those from the First World War, are located at the Section des archives médicales et hospitalières des armées (SAMHA) in Limoges in west-central France. Further information on the First World War holdings of SAMHA may be found here (French only).
The central reading room of the SHD is located at the Château de Vincennes in Paris. Please note that documents must be ordered at least two weeks in advance in order to be consulted at the Vincennes reading room, and that some documents require advance permission (dérogation) for consultation.