Charitè

Yesterday was the Charitè Museum of Medicine.  Definitely the coolest museum we've been to so far.  I was most wowed by the room that showcased parts of the human body that ranged from normal to diseased.  The last row exhibited all different types of birth defects, things that you see in horror films or read about in disturbing books, not things I've actually seen before.  Some of the specimens didn't even look human.  I wish I could have understood the German words for the different diseases so I could know what exactly I was looking at.  I also really liked the way they had the room arranged with the normal specimens closest to the center aisle and specific diseases displayed for each organ.  The long room upstairs with the collection of past and present medical paraphanelia was neat too.  I looked at the pictures they had for early forms of plastic surgery, which was interesting to me because I think of nose jobs as purely being something of today's society.  Something I've learned about on this trip that I was not aware of before are the wax models of the patient's diseased faces.  Seeing the whole display case of those there at the Charitè was definitely something I'll remember.  I also liked having class in the old lecture hall there at the museum.  It was cool to know that we were sitting where many modern medicine pioneers sat and learned about the anatomy and responses of the human body.  There were a lot of really neat things displayed at Charitè, and I can't describe all of them without sounding longwinded.  Just know that I really liked this place...it was a good final field trip! :)