[Patient care personnel, patients and illnesses at the Geneva General Hospital at the beginning of the 17th century].

During the early decades of the seventeenth century, the city of Calvin, as well as most of Europe, experienced a severe economic depression, worsened by wars and recurring outbreaks of plague. This sad era is characterized by poverty coupled with illness, the formidable yokes of the poor and the feeble. Sustained by the city government, the Hôpital Général of Geneva was the hub of social and medical assistance during those "years of darkness". The aim of this article is to shed new light upon the medical techniques of that era by focusing on the caregivers and their patients, on health, disease, and suffering.