Vienna General Hospital, 1784The Narrenturm, built circa 1782Professors of the Medical School, 1853One of the oldest lightning rods in the world, at the NarrenturmModel of the new AKHIgnaz Philipp Semmelweis commemorative coin featuring the General Hospital in Vienna
The origins of Vienna General Hospital go back to Dr. Johann Franckh, who donated properties in 1686, after the end of the second Siege of Vienna, at the corridor Schaffernack for the establishment of a military hospital. However, since money was lacking for the establishment of the buildings, the disabled veterans were quartered, including families, in the Kontumazhof (epidemic hospital), already in existence. In 1693, Emperor Leopold I arranged the establishment of the large hospital. In 1697, the first ward was finished, into which 1,042 persons were quartered.
By 1724, 1,740 persons lived there. Extension of the complex was made possible by the will of Ferdinand Baron von Thavonat, who left his estate to disabled soldiers in 1726. The marriage or widow yard, now Thavonathof, was to be finished. Also, the side yards formed by Zwischentrakte, the patient yard (4.), Restaurant economics (5.) and craftsman center (7.) were established.
During 1752 to 1774, further development occurred for the student yard (3.) and the house supervisor yard (6.). The inhabitants had to wear their own uniforms and received individual copper coins, which could be redeemed with the bakers in the complex, butchers, etc. The dissolution of the neighbouring cemetery came finally in 1834 of the 8th and 9th wards, in addition[clarification needed].
On January 28, 1783, Emperor Joseph II visited the poorhouse. He stated the fact that the enormous plant served more as an accommodation for people who gained entry by virtue of their connections. Those who were the neediest were still in need of care. Professor Dr. Joseph Quarin, who later became director, used a general hospital plan.
On August 16, 1784, the opening took place. The hospital was responsible initially only for the attendance of patients; the remaining tasks of hospitals were separate. Attached to the hospital was a maternity ward, an orphanage, and a lunatic asylum. The Narrenturm was the first special building for the accommodation of mental patients.
Particularly in the 19th century, Vienna General Hospital was the center of the Viennese Medical School, as one of the centers of medical research. There Ignaz Semmelweis made his observations of hygiene, and Karl Landsteiner discovered the groups of blood types.
The site of the old AKH is used as the main university campus of the University of Vienna, and includes the university's medical institutes as well as numerous humanities institutes and several catering trade enterprises and smaller enterprises.
The synagogue in the old AKH Vienna was established in 1903 by architect Max Fleischer as the "praying pavilion" for patients of Jewish faith. The synagogue was devastated during the Third Reich's Kristallnacht in 1938, and further destroyed when converted after the war, in 1953, into a transformer station.[1] In 2005, the remains of the building were restored to become the Marpe Lanefesch Memorial.[2]
In the old AKH stands the first building worldwide for the accommodation of mental patients, established in 1784 under Emperor Joseph II by Isidore Canevale. Today, it is the seat of the Federal Pathological-Anatomical Museum, Vienna. The building consisted of a five-part fortress-like circular building with slot-like windows for 200 to 250 mental patients. In its strict geometrical form and austerity, the building is considered as a high point of the revolution classicism. Each cell had strong lattice doors and rings for chaining unrestrained patients. Ten years later, the tower was already completely outdated due to innovations in the therapy for mental patients. From its round form is derived the usual colloquial designation in Vienna, Gugelhupf, meaning a round Austrian cake. The notion that the Fool's Tower is a conversion of the idea of the Panopticon of Jeremy Bentham does not apply, since the cells are not controllable from a central observation post.
Already at the oldest model[clarification needed], the Fool's Tower has at the roofridge a lightning rod or a Blitzfänger. Two of its mounting plates in the inner court still exist. The apparatus, devised by the Czech priest and inventor Prokop Diviš and installed in 1754, was probably not intended as lightning protection. Josef II knew well the attempts of Diviš, which specifically concerned an assumed health benefit from currents. Whether the lightning conductors were used for the treatment of the patients has not been clarified.
Nazi era
In 1939, a year after Austria's Anschluss with Hitler's Third Reich, the General Hospital was transferred to municipal administration.[3]
Reporting on March 28, 1938, shortly after Austria's Anschluss with Nazi Germany, Time wrote of the devastating impact of the persecution of the many Jewish doctors in Vienna, listing the suicides, both Jewish and non-Jewish, including "Professor Arnold Baumgarten, 58, part-Jewish director of Vienna's largest city hospital (1,000 beds), onetime head of the Austrian State health department" and "Professor Wolfgang Denk, 55, University & General Hospital chief surgeon, author of the textbook on surgery most widely used in Austria, no Jew."[4]
New AKH
With time, the Joseph-era buildings of the general hospital became unwieldy, so in 1957, it was decided to establish a new large central hospital. The building of the new AKH begun in the summer of 1964. At the beginning, the personnel hostels and the university clinics for child medicine were moved. In 1974, the building of the main house began. This consists of an outpatient clinic and OI area (approx. 50 OI halls) and two large, 22-floor high bed towers, which accommodate 2,200 beds.
The AKH is connected with its own underground (metro) station (U6Michelbeuern/AKH) to the public transportation network. The Zentralbau with the bed towers was officially opened in 1994, but already partly in use from 1991. The total construction costs are equivalent, in 2004 values, to approximately 4.5 billion euro, projected as 1 billion Schilling (72.67 million euro originally). The construction costs are carried together by the city of Vienna and the Austrian federation. The cost explosion and an associated bribery affair with the building of the new AKH led to the AKH scandal, the largest Austrian building scandal. Moreover, the Austrian magazine ECO reported that only 60% of the AKH was used, and was thus planned much too large. The unused (however completely equipped) part stands completely empty.[citation needed]
At present, about 9,000 people are employed at the AKH. Of these, approximately 1,600 physicians and 4,500 allied health and nursing workers attend to patients. Annually, nearly 95,000 people are treated as inpatients, and another half-million attend the hospital's 384 outpatient clinics. Over 11,000 students are registered at the Medical University of Vienna.
See also
The hospital was recently selected as a main motif for a high value collectors' coin: the Austrian €50 Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis commemorative coin. The reverse has a wide view of the old General Hospital in Vienna, where Semmelweis was stationed in the childbirth clinic.
Hofburg - Royal court buildings during the time period.
↑ "Spitäler". www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at (in German (formal address)). Retrieved 2022-02-01. NS-Zeit. Enteignungen, Arisierungen und "Einweisung" in das Eigentum der Stadt Wien. Zu einer weiteren, mit Arisierungen verbundenen Kommunalisierungswelle kam es nach dem "Anschluss". 1939 ging insbesondere das Allgemeine Krankenhaus in städtische Verwaltung über, ebenso alle weiteren Fondsspitäler.
Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician and scientist, who was an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the "saviour of mothers", he discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically reduced by requiring hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal. He proposed the practice of washing hands with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital's First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors' wards had three times the mortality of midwives' wards. He published a book of his findings in Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever.
Alsergrund is the ninth district of Vienna, Austria. It is located just north of the first, central district, Innere Stadt. Alsergrund was incorporated in 1862, with seven suburbs. As a central district, the area is densely populated. According to the census of 2001, there were 37,816 inhabitants over 2.99 square km.
Semmelweis University is a research-led medical school in Budapest, Hungary, founded in 1769. With six faculties and a doctoral school it covers all aspects of medical and health sciences.
The Gürtel is a substantial city road of Vienna. Running 13.1 km (8.1 mi) parallel to the famous Vienna Ring Road, it encompasses the inner city districts (Innenbezirke) and follows the route of the former Linienwall outer fortification. The city's red-light district is situated around the Gürtel.
Ferdinand Karl Franz Schwarzmann, Ritter von Hebra was an Austrian physician and dermatologist known as the founder of the New Vienna School of Dermatology, an important group of physicians who established the foundations of modern dermatology.
The Otto-Wagner-Spital is a hospital in Vienna, Austria. It was originally a psychiatric hospital and center for pulmonology.
The Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH) is a major public teaching hospital in Sydney, Australia, located in St Leonards. It serves as a teaching hospital for Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney and has approximately 700 beds. It is the referral hospital for Northern Sydney. Its primary referral area accommodates 5.7% of the Australian population or 17% of the NSW population.
The Medical University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It is the direct successor to the faculty of medicine at the University of Vienna, founded in 1365 by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria. As one of the oldest medical schools in the world, it is the oldest in the German-speaking countries, and was the second medical faculty in the Holy Roman Empire, after the Charles University of Prague.
Am Spiegelgrund was a children's clinic in Vienna during World War II, where 789 patients were murdered under child euthanasia in Nazi Germany. Between 1940 and 1945, the clinic operated as part of the psychiatric hospital Am Steinhof later known as the Otto Wagner Clinic within the Baumgartner Medical Center located in Penzing, the 14th district of Vienna.
Leopold Schrötter Ritter von Kristelli, was an Austrian internist and laryngologist born in Graz. He was the son of chemist Anton Schrötter von Kristelli, and father to physician Hermann Schroetter-Kristelli (1870–1928).
Historically, puerperal fever was a devastating disease. It affected women within the first three days after childbirth and progressed rapidly, causing acute symptoms of severe abdominal pain, fever and debility.
Johann Peter Frank was a German physician and hygienist.
Carl Braun, sometimes Carl Rudolf Braun alternative spelling: Karl Braun, or Karl von Braun-Fernwald, name after knighthood Carl Ritter von Fernwald Braun was an Austrian obstetrician. He was born 22 March 1822 in Zistersdorf, Austria, son of the medical doctor Carl August Braun.
Ignaz Semmelweis discovered in 1847 that hand-washing with a solution of chlorinated lime reduced the incidence of fatal childbed fever tenfold in maternity institutions. However, the reaction of his contemporaries was not positive; his subsequent mental disintegration led to him being confined to an insane asylum, where he died in 1865.
The Narrenturm in Vienna is continental Europe's oldest building for the accommodation of psychiatric patients. Built in 1784, it is next to the site of the old Vienna General Hospital, and is now home to the Federal Pathologic-Anatomical Museum Vienna.
Alservorstadt was an independent municipality until 1850 and is since then divided between Josefstadt and Alsergrund, the 8th and 9th districts of Vienna, respectively.
The Semmelweis-Frauenklinik is a women's clinic in the 18th district of Vienna known as Währing. It is named after Ignaz Semmelweis. The clinic is registered as an historically significant place and is to be found at Bastiengasse 36–38 in Vienna. It encompasses six five-story pavilions surrounded by a park.
Emil Fröschels was an Austrian speech and voice therapy specialist. As a laryngologist and chief speech therapist, in 1924 he introduced the term logopedics into medical usage. He established the International Society of Logopedics and Phoniatrics and was a co-founder, with Karl Cornelius Rothe, of the Vienna School for Speech-Disturbed Children.
The General Polyclinic was a hospital in Vienna where many well-known Austrian physicians worked.
References
Alfred Stohl, Der Narrenturm. Oder die dunkle Seite der Wissenschaft. Vienna, 2000.
This article includes information translated from the German-Wikipedia.
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