• 001 - the logo.jpg
  • 002 - Hiroshima sunset.jpg
  • 003 - Auschwitz-Birkenau ramp.jpg
  • 004 - Chernobyl contamination.jpg
  • 005 - Darvaza flaming gas crater.jpg
  • 006 - Berlin Wall madness.jpg
  • 007 - Bulgaria - monument at the bottom of Buzludzhy park hill.jpg
  • 008 - Ijen crater.jpg
  • 009 - Aralsk, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 010 - Paris catacombs.jpg
  • 011 - Krakatoa.jpg
  • 012 - Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, Hanoi.jpg
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  • 014 - DMZ Vietnam.jpg
  • 015 - Colditz Kopie.jpg
  • 016 - Glasgow Necropolis.jpg
  • 017 - Hashima ghost island.jpg
  • 018 - Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 019 - Arlington.jpg
  • 020 - Karosta prison.jpg
  • 021 - Kamikaze.jpg
  • 022 - Chacabuco ghost town.jpg
  • 023 - Eagle's Nest, Obersalzberg, Berchtesgaden.jpg
  • 024 - Kursk.jpg
  • 025 - Bran castle, Carpathia, Romania.jpg
  • 026 - Bestattungsmuseum Wien.jpg
  • 027 - Pripyat near Chernobyl.jpg
  • 028 - Sedlec ossuary, Czech Republic.jpg
  • 029 - Pyramida Lenin.jpg
  • 030 - Falklands.jpg
  • 031 - Majdanek.jpg
  • 032 - Soufriere volcano, Montserrat.jpg
  • 033 - moai on Easter Island.jpg
  • 034 - Sidoarjo.jpg
  • 035 - Hötensleben.jpg
  • 036 - Natzweiler.jpg
  • 037 - Polygon, Semipalatinsk test site, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 038 - Srebrenica.jpg
  • 039 - Liepaja, Latvia.jpg
  • 040 - Vemork hydroelectric power plant building, Norway.jpg
  • 041 - Enola Gay.jpg
  • 042 - Pentagon 9-11 memorial.jpg
  • 043 - Robben Island prison, South Africa.jpg
  • 044 - Tollund man.jpg
  • 045 - Marienthal tunnel.jpg
  • 046 - Aso, Japan.jpg
  • 047 - Labrador battery Singapore.jpg
  • 048 - Artyom island, Absheron, Azerbaijan.jpg
  • 049 - Treblinka.jpg
  • 050 - Titan II silo.jpg
  • 051 - dosemetering doll, Chernobyl.jpg
  • 052 - Holocaust memorial, Berlin.jpg
  • 053 - Komodo dragon.jpg
  • 054 - cemeterio general, Santiago de Chile.jpg
  • 055 - Tuol Sleng, Phnom Phen, Cambodia.jpg
  • 056 - West Virginia penitentiary.jpg
  • 057 - ovens, Dachau.jpg
  • 058 - Derry, Northern Ireland.jpg
  • 059 - Bulgaria - Buzludzha - workers of all countries unite.jpg
  • 060 - Sachsenhausen.jpg
  • 061 - Tiraspol dom sovietov.jpg
  • 062 - modern-day Pompeii - Plymouth, Montserrat.jpg
  • 063 - Pico de Fogo.jpg
  • 064 - Trinity Day.jpg
  • 065 - Zwentendorf control room.jpg
  • 066 - Wolfschanze.jpg
  • 067 - Hiroshima by night.jpg
  • 068 - mass games, North Korea.jpg
  • 069 - Harrisburg.jpg
  • 070 - Nuremberg.jpg
  • 071 - Mostar.jpg
  • 072 - Tu-22, Riga aviation museum.jpg
  • 073 - Gallipoli, Lone Pine.jpg
  • 074 - Auschwitz-Birkenau - fence.jpg
  • 075 - Darvaza flaming gas crater.jpg
  • 076 - Atatürk Mausoleum, Ankara.jpg
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  • 078 - AMARG.jpg
  • 079 - Chacabuco ruins.jpg
  • 080 - Bucharest.jpg
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  • 092 - skull heaps in Sedlec ossuary, Czech Republic.jpg
  • 093 - Nikel.jpg
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  • 100 - Peenemünde.jpg
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  • 105 - St Helena.jpg
  • 106 - Stutthof, Poland.jpg
  • 107 - Merapi destruction.jpg
  • 108 - Chueung Ek killing fields, Cambodia.jpg
  • 109 - Marienborn former GDR border.jpg
  • 110 - Mig and star, Kazakhstan.jpg
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  • 114 - Grutas Park, Lithuania.jpg
  • 115 - Zwentendorf reactor core.jpg
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  • 118 - Ushuaia prison.jpg
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  • 120 - Marienthal with ghost.jpg
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  • 122 - Berlin Olympiastadion.JPG
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  • 124 - Spassk.jpg
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  • 131 - Barringer meteor crater.jpg
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  • 135 - pullution, Kazakhstan.JPG
  • 136 - palm oil madness.jpg
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  • 142 - KZ jacket.JPG
  • 143 - ex-USSR.JPG
  • 144 - Indonesia fruit bats.JPG
  • 145 - Alcatraz.JPG
  • 146 - Chernobyl Museum, Kiev, Ukraine.JPG
  • 147 - Halemaumau lava lake glow, Hawaii.JPG
  • 148 - Rosinenbomber at Tempelhof, Berlin.jpg
  • 149 - Verdun, France.JPG
  • 150 - hospital, Vukovar, Croatia.JPG
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  • 154 - Groß-Rosen, Poland.jpg
  • 155 - at Monino, Russia.jpg
  • 156 - blinking Komodo.jpg
  • 157 - inside Chernobyl NPP.JPG
  • 158 - Mount St Helens, USA.JPG
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  • 160 - Vucedol skulls, Croatia.JPG
  • 161 - colourful WW1 shells.JPG
  • 162 - Zeljava airbase in Croatia.JPG
  • 163 - rusting wrecks, Chernobyl.JPG
  • 164 - San Bernadine alle Ossa, Milan, Italy.jpg
  • 165 - USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.JPG
  • 166 - Brest Fortress, Belarus.JPG
  • 167 - thousands of bats, Dom Rep.JPG
  • 168 - Hohenschönhausen, Berlin.JPG
  • 169 - Perm-36 gulag site.JPG
  • 170 - Jasenovac, Croatia.JPG
  • 171 - Beelitz Heilstätten.JPG
  • 172 - Kremlin, Moscow.jpg
  • 173 - old arms factory, Dubnica.JPG
  • 174 - Pervomaisc ICBM base, more  missiles, including an SS-18 Satan.jpg
  • 175 - Cellular Jail, Port Blair.jpg
  • 177 - control room, Chernobyl NPP.JPG
  • 178 - Podgorica, Montenegro, small arms and light weapons sculpture.jpg
  • 179 - Vught.jpg
  • 180 - Japanese cave East Timor.jpg
  • 181 - Ani.jpg
  • 182 - Indonesia wildfire.jpg
  • 183 - Chacabuco big sky.jpg
  • 184 - Bunker Valentin, Germany.JPG
  • 185 - Lest we Forget, Ypres.JPG
  • 186 - the logo again.jpg

Moulagenmuseum

    
 2Stars10px  - darkometer rating: 4 -
  
Moulagenmuseum ZürichAn excellent collection of medical wax models (technical term: ‘moulages’) on public display in a dedicated small museum at Zürich’s medical university and hospital. It’s of interest to anybody into “icky medical tourism” but especially of course to people with a special interest in medicine.

>More background info

>What there is to see

>Location

>Access and costs

>Time required

>Combinations with other dark destinations

>Combinations with non-dark destinations

  
More background info: The making of wax models (moulages) of body parts showing the effects of certain diseases has a long history, going back to the 18th century (see Palazzo Poggi or Josephinum). In the case of Zürich, the technique was introduced to its medical university in 1918, when Lotte Volger began supplying such models, which are of a very high quality, realistic and true to colour. The exact technique she used was not written down but kept a secret and passed on to Volger’s successors orally only. It wasn’t until 1998 that it was finally revealed.
  
Initially the models were used only for educational and scientific presentation purposes, in lectures or for students’ self-study.
  
As colour photography and later digital technologies advanced, the wax models were slowly deemed old-fashioned and banished to storage boxes in the university’s basement.
  
Later, their historical value was reassessed, and some 600 of the university’s collection of ca. 2000 wax models was put on display in the current museum and thus made accessible to the general public. But students still use them as well (also outside the public opening times).
  
The technique of making moulages was revived too, and today new ones are again being made in Zürich.
  
  
What there is to see: hundreds of medical wax models, with a focus on dermatological and venereal diseases.
  
There are text panels with more or less detailed explanations of what is depicted, but these are all in German only. However, a number of QR codes added to the glass display cases allow smartphone users access to translations into English stored online. These work very well.
  
It’s impossible to go through all the details of the vast number of conditions covered in the museum; but a few “highlights” of especially disturbing exhibits include those illustrating smallpox and a number of venereal diseases of the genitals (male as well as female), including syphilis.
  
Also covered are various diseases transmitted through viruses or parasites one can pick up during travels in exotic countries – so that’s particularly unnerving for travel addicts such as myself.
   
But the one exhibit that stands out the most in my memory is that of wax model of a baby with “scalded skin syndrome”. This is caused by bacteria called ‘Staphylococcus aureus’ that disrupt the linkage between the horny cells of the skin leading to rapid destruction of the epidermis. It affects especially infants with a 50% mortality rate. The informal name comes from the look of the skin like what you’d get from burning with boiling water. And indeed the full-body model on display does look like it’s a baby that’s been dipped into scalding hot water.
  
In addition to the freely accessible items in the glass display cabinets, there are additional library cabinets where visitors or students can access yet more items.
  
All in all, this is certainly a special-interest museum, but for those into dark tourism’s subcategory of “icky medical tourism” this is a must-see.
  
  
Location: just off Universitätsstrasse at the following address: Haldenbachstrasse 14, 8091 Zürich; on the ground floor of a modern university building.
  
Google Maps locator: [47.3804, 8.5486]
  
  
Access and costs: quite restricted opening times; but free entry
  
Details: The museum is not too tricky to locate, but you have to time your visit well, given the very restricted opening times.
  
To get there from the city centre you can use tram lines 9 or 10 and get out at Haldenbach. The museum is just round the corner.
  
Opening times: only on Wednesdays from 2 to 6 p.m. and on Saturdays from 1 to 5 p.m.
 
Admission free.
  
Guided tours of one hour duration can be arranged too (info[at]moulagen.ch) and cost 120 CHF per group.
  
Note that no photography is allowed in the exhibition.
  
  
Time required: depends on whether you can read German and how deep your interest in the medical details is. I spent a good half hour in the museum, but some will want to have longer.
   
  
Combinations with other dark destinations: see under Zürich.
   
   
Combinations with non-dark destinations: see under Zürich.
   
  
  
  
  
  

© dark-tourism.com, Peter Hohenhaus 2009-2023

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