Hannover/Vienna – 1/9

In Hannover, we visited the Axolotyl Research Center. I was so excited to have a good enough understanding of developmental biology from my courses to actually understand what the researchers were talking about! I find it even more exciting that this kind of research is being done today – I had no idea that we are getting a firm grasp on extrapolating the biology of limb regeneration in axolotyls to possibly being useful in human medicine. We now know the genes in axoloyls that are responsible both for limb regrowth and for scarless healing, both of which are obviously important for patients who have lost or damaged limbs due to war or violence or work accidents. I was impressed with the presentation of background material and data, but seeing the axolotyls up close gave an even better understanding of how the research is done. Seeing the animals without limbs (mostly on accident, in these cases) is saddening, but we have to remember that the research is done ethically these days and that it benefits us without hurting the animals. We then visited the Hannover Zoo, which I honestly could have done without since I have visited a lot of zoos as a kid. However, seeing the baby animals was a riot, to say the least.

Upon arriving in Vienna, we toured the city from a medical history perspective today. I especially enjoyed visiting seeing the images of Saints Damian and Cosmos in the churches, since they have a special meaning to me as a Catholic and a future healthcare practitioner. I actually didn’t know much about the two men and learned from Dr. Wasser that they are twins! I also enjoyed seeing the location of the first Cesarean section. This is a ‘sacred’ place to me, as well, as a future OB/GYN.

The tour of the Saint Michael’s church and catacombs gave me a greater perspective on the role of the church in daily life in the old days, especially how important individuals were buried and remembered. As a modern Catholic, I really don’t have a lot of knowledge about this, especially since I have never visited the older churches in Europe! I must say that touring the catacombs was scarring for me. I feel that having the bones of these individuals, even mummies, exposed to the public is disrespectful to their memories. I realize that it is a complicated issue, since we do not actually know who these people were, so we cannot bury them very properly today even if we wanted to – Indeed, I think that burying them in a mass grave is just as bad. The presence of the closed coffins was not quite so bad in my opinion, since the corpses have their ‘privacy’ so to say and the art contained on the coffins is of cultural and historical significance. Seeing this made me think of all the prepared medical specimens that we have seen so far on this trip, especially at the Charité Museum. I cannot help but think how disrespected these people are to be viewed every day, since many of them died long enough ago that there was no informed consent for their bodies to be preserved so. I can understand leaving the medical specimens for viewing today strictly for educational purposes, but I cannot defend the exposure of the corpses in Saint Michael’s. It goes back to the relaxed approach to death the Viennese have, which I mostly find refreshing due to its realistic nature but in this case extremely disrespectful.