A little Geschichte der Medizin made with wax!

Today in Vienna, mostly cloudy, a bit cold, no more snow. Lucky for us we had to be indoors, and what a better place than Museum des Instituts für Geschichte der Medizin der Universität Wien in the Josephinum... yup long name. Well, a few posts back I wrote about Joseph II and the Allgemeines Krankenhaus. This museum, actually the medical school that this museum is now a part of, was founded by him. It was called the Josephinum Akademie.

We started our rounds with an old friend, Leopold Auenbrugger. He was the man responsible for the first use of percussion. He took this idea from his father who tapped on wine barrels to see if they were empty or full. But, no one paid attention to him and his book Inventum Novum was forgotten until many years later. The museum held a vast collection of medical instruments used back in the day. This included heatable cups for bloodletting, saws for fast amputation, even homeopathic kits! They also had the "Medical kits" that students bought, or received to practice medicine. The next area of the exhibit had pictures of a medical hero, Dr. Sammelweiß, the "savior of mothers." With his hygienic rules, he reduced mother mortality from puerpereal feverby an enormous margin. He also practiced antiseptic techniques during operations. He is, in some ways, the father of antisepsis. We saw pictures of the old anatomic theaters where dissections took place and a specimen of the stomach of a lady. This stomach had sutures on it, because Theodore Bilroth performed an operation and removed a cancerous growth from it. The patient survived for three months. Throughout this exhibit we saw pictures of important medical figures such as Gustav Riehl, dermatologist, Wilhelm Winternitz, father of scientific hydrotherapy, and Karl Koller, who discovered the anesthetic properties of cocaine (Coca Cola = Cocaine Koller, if you think about it).

The second half of the exhibit was a little bit more anatomical. We walked through halls full of old instruments, shelves full of them from top to bottom: Prostheses, new and old, scalpels, microscopes, percussion hammers, everything and anything ever used in medicine. We finally got to a room full of 'cadavers.' These, however, were actually Venetian wax models especially designed for the medical school. They were crafted in traditional Venetian poses and had real hair (blonde for German-speaking countries). Each model, depending on size and intricacy took anywhere from 2-4 months to complete. They have been at the university since 1785 and have seen countless generations of medical students. They had the lymph vessel body, which portrayed this newly discovered body system, though perhaps not accurately. They also had the first ever gynecology section. Here we saw how a baby is carried and how it is born, including a birth by forceps. We also saw possible pregnancy complications and siamese twins. The story says siamese twins were often aborted along with any baby that put the mother's life at risk.

After our museum journey we once again went around Vienna, especially Stephansplatz until 7PM when we met at the hotel to go celebrate Krystynas Birthday at a local restaurant, and end the night at a karaoke bar... it was fun, though I did not sing.