Hello again, All!
Here is the article in full.  When you have the chance to read over it, I 
would appreciate your feedback.  Thank you to all who wrote in with 
suggestions before!
Sincerely,
Julie Kendig
Volunteer Coordinator
Reuben H. Fleet Science Center
1875 El Prado
San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 238-1233 x. 835
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Beyond Body Worlds: An Internal Look at the Controversial Exhibit
or
Experience From the Inside Out: One Visitor’s Commentary on Body Worlds

It’s like a horror movie where children are welcome to attend.  It’s also 
like a live encyclopedia where examples of every human body part are 
displayed right before your eyes.  It’s Barnum & Bailey and Andreas 
Versalius all wrapped into one.  What could be so grotesque, so educational, 
so controversial that over 15 million people would come to see it?  It’s the 
exhibit Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies.  
Briefly stated, "The exhibition offers unique opportunities to uncover 
overcome taboos related to death1."

Gunther Von Hagens is the mastermind behind the science.  He is an inventor, 
political prisoner, pathologist, professor and director.  He has acquired 
several patents through his tissue and cell preservation work.  This exhibit 
has traveled from Asia to Europe with each culture reacting in its own way.  
The exhibit has systematic organization beginning with the body’s skeletal 
construction and locomotive functions.  All the major human systems are 
revealed progressively, including the digestive system, nervous system and 
circulatory system.  Finally the exhibit culminates with the reproductive 
system as if to end with the beginning and signal a recurring circular 
theme.  An epilogue to the exhibit where Von Hagens pulls out all the stops 
reveals by far the largest and most animated specimen if through implication 
onlyæa plastinated horse and rider.

Have you had the chance to see it on the web or in person?  My recent visit 
was what I expected and more!  I knew that I would dread the confrontation 
between preserved human flesh and my eyes.  I also knew that I would follow 
through with the total experience.  I went with a group of 
friends/co-workers, and we arrived on a dark and rainy dayæunusual for 
southern California.  The admission line was long, and the hall was noisy.  
I didn’t mind the hubbub; it added a lively dimension to such a macabre 
exhibit.  The usual LA suspects were presentæa group of massage therapists 
discovering the location of the kidney and how a deep tissue massage would 
affect it, a surgeon relaying suture practices to her under 12 daughter, an 
artist with wavy gray hair and black hat (quite similar to the one Von 
Hagens is never without) lugging his under 30 girlfriend.  Everyone came to 
the California Science Center for the highly publicized event.

The exhibit starts as a banner behind the ticketing counter.  These banners 
displayed throughout the galleries quoted philosophical questions proposed 
across time as well as artistic detail in penæreflections that would be 
displayed in flesh and blood.  The very first states, 
"____________________2."  I waited by to eavesdrop on a woman explaining to 
her small children what they were about to experience.  What would you say?  
No amount of Internet research could have prepared me for what I was about 
to see; it’s being there that puts the taste in your mouth.

The exhibit is designed to include a warm-up display.  The proverbial 
plastic skeleton used in junior high life science classes is the first 
character the visitor meets.  After the skeleton, it’s straight into the 
good stuff.  Those with strong stomachs and an eagerness to learn jump right 
in, while others apprehensively approach with ease.  How amazing it is!

There is nothing keeping the visitor from getting as close as they want to 
many of the specimens outside cases.  The first toenail I spotted reminded 
me of the stories I heard as a kid about how curators would have to clip the 
nails and hair of Lenin as they grew for years even after his death.  At one 
stop on the map a very enthralled visitor examining a strand of the nervous 
system was so close that his gentle breath made the tiny fragile nerve 
fibers sway to and fro.

During the experience, there were many chances to recognize and understand 
the complexities of our own bodies and to observe similarities between the 
world of anatomy and the world of botany, for example.  In fact one aim of 
the exhibit as set out by its publicists is that the public "becomes aware 
of the naturalness of [their] own bodies and recognizes the individuality 
and anatomical beauty inside3."  In contrast there were many opportunities 
to humiliate those people who so willingly donated their bodies to science.

One full body specimen posed with muscle fibers pulled away from the torso 
wing-like to reveal organs inside the chest cavity is decorated with a white 
straw hat.  A cadaver has no voice, but would the man appreciate that?  Was 
the hat a personal belonging?  We will never know if the personality of the 
exhibit honors the personality of the donors, but my guess is that taken as 
a whole it probably does.  Think about it.  Have you ever met someone who 
doesn’t have a humorous, playful side?  But then again, only the brave mock 
their own mortality.  Additionally as museum professionals, should we 
question the integrity of the choices the exhibit designers adhered to?  
I’ve known museologists who are practical jokers, but I might be appalled if 
they incorporated such fool-hearty behavior into an exhibit design.

Technically speaking, the preservation method is a modern marvel.  
Plastination has taken the field of anatomy several strides forward.  It has 
been called a "second anatomical revolution4."  At every level from anatomy 
lecture halls to public exhibition halls it has advanced understanding and 
enlightened knowledge-seekers from the lay visitor to the professional 
scientist.  Plastination works to preserve cells by halting deterioration 
through a process of several steps that involve fixing, impregnation and 
curing the specimen.

The total process requires over 1,500 hours of processing for each body.  
Fixation prepares the tissues in a cold solvent bath, usually acetone at 
very low temperatures, and works to prepare the specimen for the process.  
The specimen is first submerged in the liquid and contained for a given 
amount of time.  The acetone dissolves and replaces bodily fluids and fatty 
matter.  The specimen is then introduced to a solution such as silicon 
rubber or other polymers developed specifically for plastination.  Then the 
temperature in the chamber is raised so that the acetone boils and is 
extracted through a vacuum.  During this step, known as "forced 
impregnation," the polymer begins to fill in voids left by the evaporating 
acetone.  Finally, the specimen is cured and the plastics are hardened with 
heat, gas or light.  "When it is all done, the preservation is so complete 
an organ/specimen can still be observed at the microscopic level with all 
tissue cells perfectly preserved5," adds California Science Center 
interpreter, Christine DeCastro.  Only though the development of space 
science have synthetic plastic products aided preservation scientists.  
Historically, biological materials were preserved by natural processes, as 
in the case of Native American brain tanning by way of the sun, or by 
chemical processes, as in the use of formaldehyde.

Gunther Von Hagens invented the process of plastination in 1977 while 
completing his doctoral thesis at the University of Heidelberg.  Dr. Von 
Hagens is respected and admired worldwide for his progressive discoveries.  
But here in the states, scientists and visitors alike criticize his choices. 
  Many feel that his approach sensationalizes the study of health and human 
sciences to a ridiculous point.  Others are worried about the effect Body 
Worlds will have on the outside perception of the field of anatomy.  Nina 
Stoyan-Rosenweig of the J.H. Miller Health Science Center at the University 
of Florida, Gainesville, observes that doctors at the College of Medicine 
worry about the potential decline in donorship.  She states, "The anatomists 
here have a very negative slant on Von Hagens, feeling that what he does is 
very disrespectful6."

Respect, however, is difficult to measure.  What criteria of respectability 
does one apply to this situation?  Would the number of donors pledged 
because of this exhibit justify its means?  Does a blanket statement about 
the anonymity of willing donors carry the respect certain visitors are 
looking ofr when considering their own mortality?  Does adding a straw hat 
atop a cadaver decrease the amount of knowledge gained from a universally 
insightful museum experience?  In my opinion, only the strong can appreciate 
its beauty; all others are forced to categorize their opinions into false 
pretenses.  An anonymous contributor to the official Body Worlds website 
proposes, "Given the amount of time and care that went into preserving these 
bodies, it seems that they were treated with respect and they have the 
potential to increase the respect we feel toward them7."

To give the reader a little more personal insight, I was disturbed by the 
female reproduction segment of the exhibit  contained behind neutral white 
walls.  I found myself calling into question the respectability of a certain 
pose of a pregnant woman swollen from 17 weeks of embryo development.  I 
thought it was ironic, to say the least, repugnant to say the worst, that 
Von Hagens chose to pose the woman as a reclining beauty with one arm above 
her head.  It was as if this very sexual position was mocking her exposed 
and now dead child.  Yet, the caveat to it all is that if not for his 
exhibit I may have never gained the level of insight provided by the actual 
specimen.  Can one fully understand the magnitude and repercussions of 
his/her daily habits and health choices until he/she has the experience of 
seeing the consequences in flesh and blood?  It’s like opening the hood of 
an automobile for the first time.  Nevertheless, insight, just like respect, 
is difficult to measure.

All personal two cents aside, the exhibit left me in a state of gray.  Even 
as I walk away, I may not remember to think of it again.  When I am at home 
and watching a basketball game, will I remember the signature dangling 
kneecaps, the way the lips and mouth were opened just so, or the muscle 
posture of a layup?  Maybe not.  Was I supposed to leave with the knowledge 
that an inflamed heart is known as hypertrophy, or that the carotid arteries 
make up two of the four major blood paths to the brain, which requires 20% 
of the body’s supply?  Yes and no.  I have determined that while the aim of 
public and informal education is knowledge dissemination, I can walk away 
from a lecture, test, exhibit, or degree for that matter with exactly what I 
wantæquestions.

And yet, while I remain inconclusive about any final judgement of the 
experience, I carry a new understanding of anatomy that can only be stored 
in my memory, told to other people I come in contact with and written about 
for those who are willing and interested enough to read.  When it comes to 
Body Worlds, experience, knowledge and power all lay in the eyes and minds 
of visitors.

Body Worlds 2 is at the California Science Center January 29 through March 
27, 2005.  Tickets and information can be sought on-line at 
http://www.californiasciencecenter.org.  Entrance to the museum is free.



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