Museum of Medical History

The Medizinhistorisches Museum, in a corner of the University Hospital Eppendorf, is a small but quietly disturbing collection of anatomical specimens, surgical instruments, wax moulages of diseases and a reconstructed early-20th-century operating theatre. It is not for queasy visitors.

The wax moulages, hand-painted with terrifying realism, are the highlight: a kind of analogue medical photography in three dimensions, used to teach doctors before colour film was available. The museum also covers the appalling history of the medical school during the Nazi period, including forced sterilisations carried out at the hospital. Combine with a walk around leafy Eppendorf if you need something calmer afterwards.

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The collection was built in the late 19th century as a teaching tool at the University Hospital Eppendorf. Wax moulages — life-size painted casts of patients' skin diseases, tumours and surgical conditions — were the era's answer to colour photography, and the museum holds one of the largest surviving collections in Europe, made by the in-house moulageur Karl Henning between 1909 and 1934.

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