Narrenturm (hospital)

The Narrenturm in Vienna in the grounds of the university campus, the historic General Hospital of Vienna, presents the world's first special buildings for the accommodation of " mentally ill " dar. It was built in 1784. Today it is the seat of the Pathological- anatomical collection in Narrenturm - NHM, incorporated since 2012 in the scientific institution, Natural History Museum Vienna ( NHM ).

The building

The building was built in 1784 by Emperor Joseph II by Josef Gerl. It was a five-story circular building with 28 rooms per floor and slit-like windows per ring and an aligned in north-south direction means tract. There were a total of 139 single cells for the occupants. Each cell measures about 13 square meters and is accessed from the circular corridor. In the middle section, the guards were housed on one side of the stair run was built, so that a large and a small yard was built. Joseph II also had to study on his trips to France the opportunity to different facilities. Many findings from the 20th and 21st century, the establishment of a fool tower is seen as a testimony of a new attitude towards the mentally ill, he is supposed to represent the beginning of the exclusion of the mentally ill from society and to separate them from the social category of " poor".

The cells had no doors during construction and the building was not connected to the sewage network. Shortly after commissioning the cell doors were installed and the tower got a channel access. A traveler inspected in 1789, a few years after opening, even these " main attraction " during his visit to Vienna: A large portion of the unfortunates imprisoned here, are soldiers. Many are not imprisoned in the containers, but sit and walk around in the corridors. Some are on chains in their cells, and are connected to the walls.

Ten years later, was the tower due to the improvements in the treatment of " mentally ill " already obsolete as completely, as only a small proportion of the mentally ill - this is regarded as overall trend for the 18th and 19th centuries - social accurately graded and treated differently hospitalized could be and provided for; however, he was occupied until 1866 with patients. From its round shape, the usual in Vienna slang term ring cake for asylums and psychiatric hospitals is derived. The assumption that the Narrenturm a realization of the idea of the panopticon of Jeremy Bentham is not true because the cells can not be controlled from one center.

Already the oldest model of the fool tower found at the roof ridge a lightning rod or lightning receptor. Two of his mounts in the courtyard still exist. Regardless of Benjamin Franklin, who in 1753 invented the lightning rod, built by the parish priest of Přímětice in Znojmo, Prokop Divis OPraem, 1754 the world's first grounded conductor in his garden. Joseph II was the attempts of Divis known what it was all about a supposed healing power of currents. Whether the probably oldest preserved remains of the lightning rod in the world Narrenturm may rather have been a lightning receptor as a lightning rod for the treatment of inmates, has not been clarified so far.

After 1866, the Narrenturm was temporarily used as an archive room and rooms for nurses.

The Museum

The museum was founded in 1796 by Emperor Francis II as a museum of the Pathological- Anatomical Institute. The collection is housed since 1971 in Narrenturm. In 1974 she was handed over by this university institute of the Ministry of Education and formally changed its name now as Pathological- Anatomical Museum. When the other federal museums dismissed due to the federal museums Act until 2003 as scientific institutions under public law in the so -called full legal capacity, that were spun off from the federal government, the museum was too small to alone to form their own scientific institution thereof. After lengthy deliberations, in what combination with other collections, the spin-off would be achievable, the latter was still directly managed by the Ministry incorporated federal museum in the fall of 2011 on January 1, 2012, federal law in the scientific institution, Natural History Museum Vienna ( NHM ).

Electric Pathological Museum

So parts of the former electric pathological museum of Stefan Jellinek are housed. The museum was opened by Jellinek in 1936, before he had to leave in 1939 as a Jew the country. After the Second World War, he got back his collection. His colleague Franz Maresch organized the exhibition after the founder's death in 1968, new. In the 1980s, a large portion was taken over by the Technical Museum, while the animal and human wet preparations was handed over to the Pathologic-Anatomical Museum.