Body Worlds Exhibit

[Guest guest]

I just got back from the UK and seeing an amazing exhibit in London. If

anyone on the list lives in or near London and has an interest in anatomy

and physiology, you must go.

The exhibit is called Body Worlds. I'd read about it months ago. It caused a

huge ruckus when it was first displayed. A German, Gunther von Hagen,

devised a method to plastinate human bodies so that the tissues would retain

their lifelike colour, and the materials could be made rigid enough to sustain

display.

However, unlike a standard dissection wherein the body is viewed in concentric

layers and parts are removed in order to see other parts, von Hagen assembles

and reassembles the bodies in innovative ways.

One body is exploded longitudinally, layers of body parts and systems expanded

upwards to create a massively tall human. Other bodies are posed in action:

dribbling a basketball and pivoting on one foot, pole vaulting upside down, a

swimmer caught in mid-stroke with her body bisected sagitally into two halves,

a chess player hunched over a chessboard with the sheath of his spinal cord

pulled open to reveal the nervous system.

In the section on the circulatory system, there are ghostly figures consisting

only of intricate webs of blood vessels, as they were injected with the polymer

and then the rest of the tissue melted away. One of my favourites was entitled

" Runner " , and showed a figure in a sprinting pose, with most of the muscles

pulled away from one of their attachments and splayed out behind the figure

like ribbons of suggested movement.

Another incredibly striking display shows a rider on a rearing horse, both of

them stripped of skin in order to compare the musculature, and the rider holds

both his own and the horse's brain in his hands to show the difference

between them.

Shocking, but apparently 95% of visitors surveyed said they thought it was

good, and 80% said they left vowing to take better care of their bodies, as

many of the specimens displayed died of some pathology, which is gently

indicated. For example, one skinless former smoker stands politely in a

display with his blackened lungs visible through his ribcage. The exhibit

makes reference to the types of gross anatomy studies practiced by people

such as Vesalius:

http://www.bodyworlds.co.uk/en/home.asp

If you're in or near London before the beginning of February 2003, see this

exhibit!

Krista -Dixon

Toronto, ON

* Don't forget to sign all letters with full name and city if you

wish them to be published!