Dr. Gunther von Hagen, the creator of this exhibition is also the inventor of plastination. As the California Science Center's site describes it :

"Plastination is a vacuum process in which a body’s water and fat content are replaced by fluid plastic, which later hardens to retain all tissue structures. The German anatomist Dr. med. Gunther von Hagens invented plastination in 1977. The technique allows the general public to enjoy fascinating insights previously available only to medical students in dissection rooms..."

The exhibition has two components - the body slides and plastinated organs, and the full plastinated cadavers. The body slides are thin cross sections of various parts of the body, and the full body slides at the end of the exhibit are gorgeous, especially when light shines through them.

The plastinated organs are fairly common to most who have studied anatomy before, but to those that have avoided memorizing everybone in the body, the disjointed organs and bones are an intriguing look at the contents of the human body. The exhibit takes advant age of the prosthetics of some of its owners, and shows us a number of fake knees and hips. Neither does it shy away from causes of death, and tumours and hemorrages abound. It makes you want to really take care of yourself. Of course, there was the showcase of a smoker's lung, versus a normal lung. Regardless, I'm already certain that anyone living in the general vicinity of LA does not have a lung as pristine as the "normal lung".

When I was looking at a cross section of a hemorraged brain, I heard a mother tell what I assume was her 8 or 9 year old daughter - "See, that's what happened to Daddy. His brain got filled up with black goo." Also- "Look, that's what happened to Grandma." "Which Grandma?" "My mother." "Oh." I'm really not sure how I feel about that. I also listened to a middle aged woman explain to her daughter's friends the functions of the reproductive system. It was amusing. There were quite a lot of younger children at this exhibition and I thought they seemed to take a lot better than the older folk.

The full plastinated bodies definitely are the highlight of the exhibition. There are significantly more men then women, and only two young children, as I remember(one as a blood vessel display, and another as a body slide). The reason for the mostly masculine figures is explained in the site's FAQ as Dr. Gunther von Hagen's wish to not appear too voyeuristic. In keeping with the tradition of Renaissance anatomists, he also turned his display focus on the male body. The organs on display, however, come primarily from female donors, and it is suggested that he will include more full female figures due to the many requests he has recieved.

What I appreciated about this exhibition the most(and most likely what a lot of other people did not) was its underlying sense of morbid humor. One "sculpture", features a skeleton tapping its muscular structure on the shoulder. Another, the one prominent in the Bodyworlds ads, features a man holding up his own skin. Others are posed in the midst of playing basketball, riding a bike and swimming, amongst other athletic activities. A teacher, his brain pathways exposed, holds the exhibition's book in one hand while reaching with a piece of chalk in another. Most even seem to have expressions, many bordering on goofy(most have no eyelids, and I just happen to associate bulging eyelids with goofiness). The most impressive one is the one found at the very end of the exhibit - a fully plastinated muscular structure and skeleton of a horse and its rider.

It is almost tempting to think of these plastinated bodies as comical and unreal, which may be why that close to the end, the exhibit makes its only commentary on any of the specimens ' lives. A pregnant woman, her stomach sliced open to reveal her unborn child, donated her body and fetus to this exhibition since she did not think she would survive long enough for her baby's gestation period. Clearly, she did not(she was at 8 months). This section of the exhibition, also featuring a series of fetuses, is walled off, probably to spare those with more emotional sensibilities. Given, it is the section that I think raises the most ethical issues, being that they've made it very clear that all other donors specifically wanted their bodies to go to a public exhibition like this one. But this article is not about fetal cognition or about ethics, really. However, if you're interested, there is a discussion on the ethics of the exhibition on October 2nd - check out the Science Center's website for more details.

I couldn't help but read some of the visitor comments in the visitor book at the end. They ranged from some fairly long torrents on the ethics of the exhibition, stupid questions like "are they really real?" and complaints about not being to take pictures( I feel them).

Anyway, admission to the rest of the Science Center is free, so try to check it out if you have time. Parking is $6.

links:

California Science Center - Where the exhibit is.

BODYWORLDS - the main exhibition site.