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The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies

I stumbled across this website and found it to be VERY interesting. Apparently this company is touring science museums and whatnot. Too bad they're not gonna be anywhere near me for a while.

They use real muscles, nerves, tissue, bones, veins, arteries, capillaries, organs, you name it, it's real.

http://bodyworlds2.glsc.org/about/gallery.asp

I went and saw this in London a few years back, it's interesting, albeit slightly offputting to see lots of dried people bits around.

Still worth a visit though.

I prefer not seeing all those organs personally. I just want them to all work well continuously. :thumbsup:

I remember when this was in London a few years ago... my friend's place wasn't too far from the exhibition hall so we went... it was very cool... creepy too.

I saw some photos in Discover Magazine; I'm not sure I could handle the exhibit. Also, apparently there was a Theft of Plastinated Fetus from BODY WORLDS 2 in Los Angeles; as far as I can tell, nobody has been caught, even though they have it on video.

[edit]never seen the exhibit, would love to though.

i saw this thread, and was reminded of something about a 'Dr. of Death' that i came across on the internet once ..

and yes, it's the same guy.

a gis found this link, not sure how true it all is...

Warning: semi-graphic pic in the middle of the page

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1489

eh, here's the article, since I know better ..

Quote:

Inside 'Dr. Death's' Factory
Audra Ang – AP February 3, 2004

German anatomist draws criticism for corpses preserved at Chinese facility

DALIAN, China (AP) - Hidden in a maze of factories in the heart of this northeastern Chinese port city is the house Gunther von Hagens built - and, for many, a place where nightmares are created.

Inside von Hagens' sprawling, well-guarded compound, behind a leaning metal fence pocked with holes, are more than 800 human beings - 200 of his staffers and 645 dead bodies in steel cases from almost a dozen nations.

The anatomist, whose exhibits of preserved human corpses have riled religious leaders in Europe and attracted the curious and the outraged across the world, set up shop here three years ago to process bodies for his shows.

Last month, media reports from von Hagens' native Germany asserted that at least two of the corpses, both Chinese, had bullet holes in their skulls - the method China uses for execution. It's a charge that von Hagens rejects vehemently, saying all his specimens were donated by people who signed releases.

"I absolutely prohibit and do not accept death penalty bodies," von Hagens, a tall, thin man in a fedora, said this week during a rare tour of his Dalian facility.

But, he added, "Many things can happen. . . . I cannot exclude that (possibility)."

Von Hagens launched his Body Worlds exhibits in 1997 and has shown them to nearly 14 million people from Japan and Korea to Britain and Germany. Shows are running now in Frankfurt, Germany and Singapore.

The displays feature healthy and diseased body parts as well as skinned, whole corpses in assorted poses - a rider atop a horse, a pregnant woman reclining - that show off the preservation technique von Hagens developed in 1977.

Dubbed "plastination," the process replaces bodily fluids and fat with epoxy and silicone, making the bodies durable for exhibition and study.

Although authorities in Dalian have made no public allegations against the operation, it has drawn the attention of the Chinese media.

"Does the corpse factory have a trade secret?" asked the Beijing Morning Post.

Investigation into the Secrets of Dalian's Corpse Processing Plant, read another in the Beijing Evening News.

Li Renzhen, a Dalian taxi driver, said, "I don't know what they are doing in there. But according to Chinese tradition, we should show respect for dead bodies."

He shook his head.

"If they are used to make money, it's unthinkable."

The German weekly Der Spiegel said in January that von Hagens ran a "shabby business," buying cheap corpses - including executed Chinese - and marketing them for profit. A British paper, the Daily Telegraph, said German lawyers also were investigating whether von Hagens used executed Chinese prisoners.

The allegations echoed charges from 2001, when von Hagens was accused of using a Russian prisoner's body. Von Hagens said that corpse was a German who donated his body.

Von Hagens said his staff searched their cache of bodies after the Der Spiegel article appeared and found seven with "different kinds of head injuries." He said he planned to incinerate those to be certain execution victims are not used.

"There is no case opened against me," said von Hagens, 59. "Nobody accuses me . . . of doing anything criminal, anything against the law."

However, prosecutors in Heidelberg, Germany, say they are pursuing allegations that von Hagens used bodies of Chinese prisoners to determine whether they have grounds to launch a full-scale investigation into possible charges of human-rights violations for using corpses of people who had not given consent while still living.

"We are looking into it right now," said Elke O'Donoghue, spokeswoman for prosecutors in Heidelberg. She could not say how long the process would take.

Critics, including the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches, have denounced von Hagens' work as disrespectful to the dead. He says he simply helps people understand their bodies.

Inside von Hagen's factory

In Frankfurt, authorities have warned parents not to allow children younger than 14 to view the exhibit, which they said could "shock and frighten." At a London show, a visitor took a hammer to one of the bodies - a man holding a liver - while another threw a blanket over the corpse of a pregnant woman, saying he could not bear to look at the fetus.

"It's a very emotional topic," acknowledged von Hagens, dubbed "Dr. Frankenstein" in November after performing Britain's first public autopsy in more than 170 years. Even in Dalian, one of his employees jokingly referred to him as "Dr. Death."

In one airy room, skinned corpses wrapped in white cloth and covered in plastic lay stretched out on tables, surrounded by "dissectors" - many of them medical students. They hunched over the bodies, picking out fat and tissue with tweezers. In another area, bodies hung "curing" with gas, light or heat.

Each body requires up to 1,500 hours of work to prepare, von Hagens says. In their final plasticized state, the corpses are rubbery to the touch with a crystalline finish - the colour of raw pork.

The room where the bodies are assembled into position is large and sunny and filled with models in different stages of production - a snowboarder here, an ice-skater there. In one area, a dead man poses in a homage to Rodin's The Thinker.

Von Hagens, too, is thinking these days - about how to quiet his critics without giving up his life's endeavour.

"I'm sure I will survive this storm in the water glass as I have survived so many before," von Hagens said. "I touch here a taboo, which is our body, and nothing is so near as our body is to us."

He adds: "I know that I am innocent. This gives me a good feeling and good sleep every day."

thats a pretty cool looking exhibit... i would definently go if it came near me...

does anyone have a schedule of the exhibition?

reminds me of the sliced up people preserved in the stairwell in one of the chicago museums... i forget which museum it is...

I just saw it in LA a few months ago. I highly recommend it. There are a *lot* of bodies and samples and you get used to it pretty quickly. What was super interesting for me is that I was recovering from a back injury at the time and I found it incredibly helpful to be able to see exactly what the hell was going on w/ the anatomy of the back in regards to my injury. It helped me rehabilitate more effectively.

I don't think that I could go to such an exhibition. It's not that I'm repulsed by the internal human body, just that I can't help thinking about who these people were that are now on display. Would they approve? Then again anatomy is a valuble learning tool, I just don't trust the guy who has set this up. Then again anatomy has always involved some shady characters.

I find it so facinating. I wish one of his shows would come to our state. I've heard of him a couple times.

The criticism is the same as Doctors or artists once suffered when they began to study to human body to understand how it was put together. Granted his endevour is more artistically motivated and not scientifically but I see nothing wrong with it. The body is a work of out and I find it beautiful that he has found a way to preserve it whole like this. So long as he is not using people who have not consented prior to death then I see nothing wrong. It's logical that critics would be searching for a breach of this standard. I doubt he would push that line as I'm sure he knows it would be a death sentence for his art to be discovered doing such a thing.

I wonder about that person who could not stand to look at the fetus - were they pro-life or pro-choice - just kinda wonder.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aKula

The bodies are obtained exclusively from people who decided they wanted to donate them for such a purpose. See:

http://www.bodyworlds.com/en/pages/koerperspende.asp

The California Science Center, before accepting the exhibit, conducted an extensive review ("the most extensive in their history", according to them) of the donation progam and a basically audited the whole process and came to the conclusion that it was 100% legit and ethical.

Went to go see this back in November in LA. I was pretty amazed at the detail on some of the models. Paticulary interesting was the fetus' they had in different stages of development. If it was still around Id recomend it to anyone who was even slighty into this type of thing.

wow, very interesting. hope it comes to my area.

i saw it in cleveland. interesting, kinda weird to be surrounded by dozens of dead people who are in funny poses...

worth the visit.

That's pretty interesting. The first one is on display in Chicago, and I'm hoping to make it up there next month, so I'll have to check it out.

I saw the body worlds exhibition in London a couple years back. I was in two minds. One I found in educational but on the other hand is it ethical?

The same german guy also cut up dead people on TV to show the Human Body. Very good but when it came to reproduction, it was a little screamish, as he cut out the male organ!

I just saw the one in chicago...

very very cool... really amazing to get to see the inner workings of the body so up close...