MEDICAL VIENNA

We owe modern medicine to the Second Vienna Medical School. We start at the Burgtheater, following in the footsteps of a famous anatomy professor and an even more famous psychoanalyst from that period! From there, our tour takes us into the exciting history of medicine in Vienna. In the Volksgarten, we greet Empress Elisabeth, who suffered from a particularly surprising illness in her old age. We continue past Ballhausplatz with a proven hypochondriac as state chancellor to Joseph II – he brought a breath of fresh air to Vienna with the founding of the General Hospital!

Smallpox, infant mortality, and typhoid fever—even the Habsburgs were not immune to disease, as we learn at the Kapuzinergruft. But why was there an elevator here for Maria Theresa? And what does early medicine have to do with beer brewing? At St. Stephen's Cathedral, we travel back to the Middle Ages, to the mystical world of alchemy. And yet even back then, it was possible to amputate legs. At Lugeck, we learn how Frederick III fared afterwards and why melons ultimately sealed his fate.

Alcohol as protection against the plague? Dear Augustine at the Griechenbeisl would agree. Fortunately, at the end we unexpectedly encounter Paracelsus, who introduced scientific thinking to medicine for the first time, but did that also apply to Vienna?

Tour duration: 1.5 to 2 hours
Number of participants: Up to 25 people