Hôtel-Dieu Saint-Jacques

The Hôtel-Dieu Saint-Jacques features a long, ochre-colored facade stretching directly along the Garonne River. It served as a hospital for pilgrims trekking the road to Santiago de Compostela. By the twelfth century, the sick and the destitute found refuge here, treated by monks and later by lay staff. During the seventeenth century, doctors pioneered the use of quinine here to treat malaria. The building operated as a functioning medical center until nineteen eighty-seven, when the last patients finally moved to newer facilities.