I
absolutely love Bonn, but after being there for a little over two weeks it was
time for a bit of a scenery change. Going to Vienna definitely accomplished this;
its big town atmosphere was drastically different compared to the small town
feel of Bonn. From the very first night in Vienna, we saw some things that I
will never forget. A tour of the city helped us understand the sub-par sanitary
conditions that people used to live in within the city, but also showed landmarks
such as where Mozart used to live and perform. Much more bizarre though was the
tour of the Catacombs beneath St. Stephen’s Cathedral. It started off with
seeing where some of cardinals were laid to rest, then got a little weirder
with the intestines of the Habsburg Royal Family, and got downright spooky with
windows allowing us to view a few different mass graves, one of which belonged
to victims of the Plague. The bones and skulls did not seem to be real to me
for some reason and I almost felt like I was in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Nonetheless, those images will
forever be engrained into my mind.
Definitely
the most interesting part of the week was getting to learn and experience first
hand the medical history of Vienna. We went on many different tours, including
the medical history tour with “Dr. Snabel,” a tour of a Funeral Museum, Fool’s
Tower, Freud’s house, the Josephinum, and the Natural History Museum. Each tour
was unique in it’s own way and I feel as though I benefitted immensely from
each one. With “Dr. Snabel,” we learned about the University of Vienna and it’s
Medical School and got to see a beautiful lecture hall within a building where part
of the medical school used to be. Along with this, we saw a prison where
students from the University could be held, the site of where the first known
c-section occurred, and where the doctor who came up with the modern and
standard examination lived. At the
Funeral Museum, it was extremely odd to see Vienna’s fascination with funerals
and the dead, especially how people absolutely made sure that their loved ones
that they were burying were dead. For instance, they sometimes had a device put
into the coffin that would ring a bell in the curator’s office if pulled (which
it often was due to decaying, not the person still being alive), or even had a
dagger put straight through the person’s heart to fully ensure that the person
was dead. We also learned of modern techniques of preserving the deceased,
including the possibility of having a person’s ashes turned into diamonds that
can be then turned into jewelry and worn on the body. The tour concluded with
the option of being put into a real casket, of which I declined to do due to
the downright creepiness of the situation. In going to Fool’s Tower, I was
legitimately expecting a tour of a psycho ward, so I was shocked upon seeing
all of the different preserved specimens and wax models in the building, some
of which were hundreds of years old. The preserved specimens included different
organs such as the lungs, body parts such as skulls, and whole skeletons. Most
if not all of these had abnormalities, such as the two girl’s skeletons which
were deformed due to Rickets. The wax models were crazy, recreating the
appearance and symptoms of different diseases of real patients in the 19th
and 20th centuries. All I can say is that I am extremely glad that
most of these diseases are not commonly around anymore today. Most conditions looked
extremely painful, deforming the skin in ways that sometimes made the
person/body part unrecognizable. A lot less gruesome than Fool’s Tower was Sigmund
Freud’s house. Before we went into the house, Dr. Wasser gave a lecture on the
life and major points within Freud’s life. I learned a lot of new things about
Freud, including that he did work on cocaine before going into psychoanalysis
and that he missed an impactful scientific discovery in that cocaine can be
used as an effective anesthetic. The actual inside of the residence did not
completely resemble the original residence (besides the entry way), but it still
served as a good museum, allowing us to see some of Freud’s possessions such as
some of his figurine collection, the original nameplate to the house/office,
and the room where the Wednesday Psychoanalytical Society Meetings used to be
held. The Josephenium, which looked like a palace in itself, was funded by
Joseph II and houses hundreds of unbelievably realistic and detailed wax models
and an extremely impressive and old medical library. The wax models were
absolutely stunning, each looking like the actual interior and/or exterior of real
people, clearly and accurately depicting what they were intended to. Most
interesting to me was the birth section, where we got to see visible
instructions through different models on how to use forceps to help a women
give birth to a baby. The National History Museum of Vienna, whose architecture
and size was impressive in itself, housed the Venus of Dusselfdorf, one of the
biggest meteorite collections in the World, countless taxidermied animals, and Maria
Theresa’s flower bouquet of precious stones. Following the tour of the actual museum
we went to the “Body Worlds”
exhibit. It featured the life cycle of humans starting from the embryo, going
into the different organ systems and organs (comparing normal and abnormal
hearts and lungs), to sex, and ending with old age. It also featured different
models ranging from a girl shooting an arrow, a man giving another man CPR, and
one showing the different nerves within the body. I would definitely pay to see
it again if given the opportunity and would have loved to spend even more time
there, which could also be said for every single one of the museums we went to.
After experiencing and learning all that Vienna has to offer, I definitely
understand why we came to Vienna on this History of Medicine study abroad
program because of its immense richness and impact on medicine as we know it
today.
We
were there for the learning, but I absolutely loved the culture and the food of
Vienna as well. Some of the delicious things we were privileged enough to eat were
wiener schnitzel with potato salad, beef goulash with dumplings, a coffee and
ice cream sundae, and we even got to have eggs for breakfast! Besides just the
food though, we also went to go and see a concert of an extremely talented
orchestra quartet in St. Mary’s , which doubled as both a stunning and
musically pleasing Church. I have no complaints about Vienna and would
definitely like to visit it again if given the opportunity to.
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