Week 3-Part 2

I never thought my brain would or could take in so much history in just one week. Vienna was an incredible city to visit. Even just walking around the city I was impressed by the variety and intensity of the architecture even of the most simple buildings. It seemed like every corner we turned revealed something historically significant or a beautiful cathedral. On our first day in Vienna we took a guided tour of the city; our tour guide was a very sweet lady who I would’ve liked to take home to be my grandmother! In such an old city it was fun to imagine what life might have been like in the past. All of the little cafes and coffee shops as well as the buildings had a wonderful aristocratic air about them. Monday afternoon we had a tour of the catacombs of St. Stephens. I found it very interesting that important persons would have their bodies, intestines, and hearts placed in different resting places. St. Stephens had the privilege of holding many of these preserved intestines in the first part of the catacombs that we visited. Amongst some of the other interesting items under the cathedral were hundreds of skeletons of those placed in mass graves as well as a mass grave containing plague victims. These gave me the heebie-jeebies!

On Tuesday, we had a history of medicine tour by Dr. Schnabel. I thought the most interesting aspect of our tour was about the plague. We learned that plague doctors wore long cloaks and strange masks with a bird beak shaped nose which was filled with a vinegar soaked rag in order to protect themselves from the sickness. They also carried a stick with which to inspect their patients at arm’s length. We also visited the funeral museum which was, needless to say, odd. We learned a little bit about the trends of Vienna’s past funeral traditions. We found out that people in the past were terrified of being buried alive, since that was a possibility in those times. A bell was used but they would just ring continuously by no fault of the person inside. Consequently, people could request to be stabbed in the heart before being buried to ensure that there was no possibility of them being buried alive. I also found out that a person can have their ashes turned into diamonds. The highlight of the funeral tour museum was testing out coffins. It was quite comical to see our professor and classmates getting cozy in a coffin for a test run. The highlight of my Tuesday was a delicious piece of chocolate birthday cake at Café Demel.

Day three in Vienna took us to the medical university. We had a very informative lecture by Professor Marz on the differences in medical schools in Vienna and the U.S. One thing I found particularly interesting was the admissions process for Vienna’s medical schools. One standardized test determines entrance into medical and dental school. Although I can see the advantages of this system in its ability to be objective, I very much prefer our system of application and interviews. The single test is supposed to determine whether a person will make a good medical student, but I don’t necessarily think that the ability to perform well on a standardized test alone is the best determinant of a student’s work ethic and motivation that are necessary to succeed as a medical student and physician.  After lunch at the university, we visited the “Fool’s Tower,” which was originally the psychiatric ward of the Viennese medical school. It was really interesting to see the collection of anatomical specimens and models that were housed in the tower. In the evening we attended a classical concert at St. Anna’s church, which was one of my favorite events of the trip so far. The church itself and the music were beautiful.

Thursday morning we visited the Freud house. I am familiar with Freud from Psychology 107 but it was entirely different to experience Freud’s actual waiting room, study, etc. as his patients knew them. Freud had some very intriguing and controversial ideas regarding the human psyche and the treatment of psychological disorders. In particular I liked Freud’s explanation of the human psyche as made up of the id, ego and super ego. After the Freud house, we had a tour of the Josephinum. The number and variety of wax models was really impressive. It was amazing how realistic most of the models were and how much work was put into each one of them. It was like visiting an old version of body worlds, which we will be visiting tomorrow along with the Natural History Museum. It has been a wonderful time in Vienna, and so far these have been some of my favorite adventures of our time in Europe. This weekend it’s off to Zurich. Until next week! Tschüss!