German Hygiene Museum

In Dresden, Germany, fortnight ago, the unique German Hygiene Museum was inaugurated. Simultaneously an International Hygiene Exhibition began a five-month session. So exemplary is the museum, so instructive the exhibition that the American Public Health Association is despatching a large delegation to study them both. After the U. S. group reaches Dresden, it will meet (July 6 and 7) with similar delegations from a score of other countries for a world health progress.

The purpose of the German Hygiene Museum is to persuade lazy, ignorant, indifferent people to look after their own health. The late great German industrialist Dr. Karl August Lingner (died 1916) who conceived the Museum, found that the best persuasion was fascinating study. Money came from German governments (state, municipal), insurance companies, industries. With habitual German thoroughness another prototype institution has been achieved, matching the German planetaria and industrial museums.

Fundament of the Museum is the collection called Der Mensch ("Man"). Parts of the body are there displayed in plastic, by photographs, in pickle, in transparency, most parts in all four media. Also there are bones. Many a visitor to the Museum last week involuntarily fingered his head when he beheld the Disassembled Man. Fastened to a tall, black board, like memoranda on a bulletin board, are the 206 disjointed bones of an adult. One could actually see what one has been taught but scarcely believes, that the head is made up of a lower jaw and 21 other bones. (The 21 are fused together at zigzag joints to make the firm though perforated flask of the brain.)

The transparencies of organs and bones fascinated visitors. Dr. Werner Spalteholz, professor of anatomy at the University of Leipzig, developed them. He treats the heart, for example, with a solution which hardens cavities, arteries, veins. Then he soaks the organ in reagents which change the flesh of the heart into a transparent jelly. The observer can see the hidden blood vessels intricately intertwined like the roots of a seaweed.

To show the mechanism of the body there is a display of the lungs showing that they hold only some four to six quarts of air, but have about 120 sq. yd. of surface with which to absorb oxygen. There is a model to demonstrate how the 10-oz. heart moves a total of 20 tons of blood daily. After the "Man" exhibit, most interest focused on the physical culture section. This shows with models and pictures the various laws which govern the structure and functions of the body. Scenes depict how various peoples and bodies at various times get their exercise.

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