Hôpital Etoc-Demazy, Psychiatric hospital monument in Le Mans, France
Hôpital Etoc-Demazy is a former psychiatric complex in Le Mans with a central administrative building connected to several patient pavilions. A chapel is located at the eastern end of the site.
The facility was founded in 1828 under Doctor Gustave Etoc's direction and replaced an earlier 16th-century hospital used for contagious patients. It later became one of the leading psychiatric institutions of its era.
The hospital was designed according to innovative ideas of Doctor Esquirol, with separate wings for male and female patients. This layout was considered a modern approach to patient care at the time.
The hospital closed in 2011, when its services moved to Allonnes, and the buildings are now in private hands, so they cannot be visited. The classified parts — chapel, lodge, pavilion, gallery and elevation — stand behind the south station in the Novaxis district. Guided tours were last offered in September 2011 during the Heritage Days.
The site was one of the first asylums created in France and grew into the largest institution of its kind in western France, housing up to 1,000 patients in its hardest years. During the Spanish flu epidemic around the First World War it lost about a third of its population, some 300 deaths.
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