Museum Dr Guislain

Ghent


Hidden away in an 1857 neo-Gothic psychiatric hospital, this enthralling mental-health museum takes visitors on a trilingual, multicultural journey through the history of psychiatry, from gruesome Neolithic trepanning to contemporary brain scans via cage beds, straightjackets, shackles and phrenology. Dr D’Arsonval’s extraordinary 1909 radiographic apparatus looks like a Dr Frankenstein creation.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Ghent attractions

1. Oude Begijnhof

0.77 MILES

Ghent has three widely separated begijnhoven; Oude Begijnhof is Ghent's most central. Unlike other surviving areas, there's no remnant enclosing wall so…

2. Prinsenhof

0.82 MILES

Originally the residence of the Count of Flanders and the birthplace of Charles V in 1500, the Prinsenhof was a walled castle with 300 rooms, a zoo and a…

3. De Wereld van Kina: de Tuin

0.94 MILES

This 7700-sq-metre garden and hot-garden with more than 1500 plants (plus live bird spiders) has a broader age appeal than its sister museum, the House…

4. Gravensteen

0.98 MILES

Flanders’ quintessential 12th-century stone castle comes complete with moat, turrets and arrow slits. It’s all the more remarkable considering that during…

5. Patershol

1 MILES

Dotted with half-hidden restaurants, enchanting Patershol is a web of twisting cobbled lanes. Its old-world houses were once home to leather tradesmen and…

6. Design Museum

1.03 MILES

A vast toilet-roll sculpture humorously marks the back side of this museum, which has a collection specialising in furnishings including baroque, art…

7. Huis van Alijn

1.06 MILES

Set in a restored 1363 children’s hospice complex, this delightful museum examines everyday life from the 1890s to the present, with a fabulous emphasis…

8. Grasbrug

1.06 MILES

To admire Ghent’s towers and gables at their most photogenic, stand just west of the little Grasbrug bridge over the Leie at dusk. It’s a truly gorgeous…