Medical history from Zug soil

Cold and rainy days are ideal conditions for a Sunday visit to the museum - the weather couldn’t have been better on the opening day of the new exhibition "Health! - 7000 years of healing”. The exhibition is also thematically suitable for the season - the start of the influenza season is just around the corner.

The official vernissage took place vis-à-vis the Museum of Prehistory In the morning. After greeting the visitors, Stephan Schleiss, head of the Directorate of Education and Culture, explained that health is an omnipresent topic in today's social discourse, and points out that people were already equally involved in this thousands of years ago: "Findings show that there was already a comprehensive knowledge of nature in the Stone Age. These were then passed on orally over generations. »

Schleiss addressed the local character of the exhibition: "One of the exhibits is a skull of a woman from Zug, who lived in the 18th century and had undergone six cranial operations. Other finds provide evidence that the people in Zug suffered from fish tapeworm, which was caused by insufficiently cooked fish.

Ebbe Nielsen from the Lucerne Cantonal Archaeology explains that the original exhibition took place in the Lucerne Museum of Nature in 2018: "We are very proud to be able to exhibit here, in such a renowned museum." Dorothea Hintermann, researcher at the Museum of Prehistory and Exhibition Curator, expressed her pleasure at the successful cooperation with Lucerne Cantonal Archaeology and the other contributors: "The exhibition immediately seemed right for our museum." The original exhibition was supplemented with objects from Zug: "Centuries-old peaches or cherries that were found in Cham-Hagendorn, or a piece of birch tar, which is considered one of the oldest chewing gum, are displayed. "Hintermann is proud that the exhibition is presented in both German and English.

After the vernissage, the visitors flocked to the museum, where an aperitif awaited. There is room for interactive and playful learning, and artefacts and written documents can be viewed on the walls. Hintermann explains: "We are trying to show the answers that archaeology can give regarding the history of medicine over the last 7,000 years. It remains, of course, an approximation and not a complete history. "The exhibition covers the time of the pile-dwellers (Pfalbauer), the Roman era, the Middle Ages and modern times.

Werner von Wyl is enthusiastic about the exhibition: "A visit is a must for people of every age group. We are no longer aware of the history that lies under our soil. The exhibition is not only vivid, but also technically highly competent, and the information is succinctly summarised.”

                              Rolf and Madlaina Zimmermann in an experiment for children