The Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret

The Old Operating Theater Museum and Herb Garret is an operating room, which was founded in 1822 at the Hospital of St. Thomas. It is the only nineteenth-century operating room in its original condition in Europe. Currently, it serves as a living museum, which hosts shows modeled on real surgical procedures. An additional attraction is Herb Garret, i.e. the former attic for drying and storing herbs and medicinal substances of natural origin - now a cabinet of curiosities with a collection of medicines and ancient surgical instruments.

The operating room resembles a small theater, in the center of which, on the lowest level, is the operating table, surrounded by arranged amphitheater seats for the audience (the audience was estimated at about 100 people). Both medical students and fans of strong sensations watched the operations carried out here. The operations were performed without disinfecting the tools, and the first procedure with anesthesia was not carried out until 1847.

Visitors to The Old Operating Theater Museum and Herb Garret can learn not only about old surgery, but also from shocking treatments from previous centuries. One of the nineteenth-century plagues were venereal diseases spreading in all social strata. Syphilis was treated with poisonous mercury compounds, and applying gonorrhea per day to a patient's penis was considered an effective method for gonorrhea.