I spent most of the last week in Burnley, near Manchester, visiting one of my relatives and for a day out her son took us to see the Body Worlds 4 exhibition at Manchester Science Museum. I deliberately asked for a new category for this because although it was at the museum it's a short term ... Read review
Advantages: Starts well, some was scientific...the literature was interesting! Disadvantages: Mostly non scientific, patronising and boring...without the arrogance of von Hagens
...took us to see the Body Worlds 4 exhibition at Manchester Science Museum. I deliberately asked for a new category for this because although it was at the museum it's a short term exhibit and the only real part of the museum we visited. The basic idea is that it is a display of dead bodies which is meant to educate the general public.
Cost: £10 adult
....... £8 student/elderly
........ £7 child - which is 16 and under ...of preserved human bodies and body parts that he prepares using a technique called plastination which he invented himself in the July 1977. The Body Worlds exhibition was first shown in Tokyo in 1995 and has since been shown all over Europe and America, with the latest show of Body Worlds 4 being at Manchester Science Museum. The original Body Worlds exhibition contained 25 full body plastinates showing certain parts of the human body in their original ... more
I spent most of the last week in Burnley, near Manchester, visiting one of my relatives and for a day out her son took us to see the Body Worlds 4 exhibition at Manchester Science Museum. I deliberately asked for a new category for this because although it was at the museum it's a short term exhibit and the only real part of the museum we visited. The basic idea is that it is a display of dead bodies which is meant to educate the general public.
Cost: £10 adult ....... £8 student/elderly ........ £7 child - which is 16 and under Dates: 22nd Feb - 29th June Location: Museum of Science and Industry, Liverpool Road, Castlefield, Manchester, M3 4FP
====What is it=== A German scientist called Gunther von Hagens has compiled a travelling exhibition of preserved human bodies and body parts that he prepares using a technique called plastination which he invented himself in the July 1977. The Body Worlds exhibition was first shown in Tokyo in 1995 and has since been shown all over Europe and America, with the latest show of Body Worlds 4 being at Manchester Science Museum. The original Body Worlds exhibition contained 25 full body plastinates showing certain parts of the human body in their original format, whilst also containing over 200 different organs, some with different diseases in different glass cases. Each exhibit has a description explaining what it is next to it, and there are certain parts of literature included as well. All the bodies used have been donated by people before they died and then been used by Gunther von Hagens as he wishes.
===Gunther von Hagens=== Dr. Gunther von Hagens was born in 1945, in Alt-Skalden, Posen, Poland-which was then part of Germany. When he was a baby his parents fled his home land to escape Russian occupation and settled in Greiz where he remained until he was 19. As a child he was diagnosed with a rare bleeding disorder that meant he had to spend long periods in hospital, he has stated that it was when he was six and nearly died from the illness that he really began to see the nurses and doctors as his saviours and decided that he wanted to become a physician. In 1965, Gunther von Hagens entered medical school at the University of Jena. His unique ideas and outgoing personality were already noted in academic reports from the university, but although they discussed his techniques most agreed that his unusual way of doing things was always in the best interest of the university. While at the university he began to question the politics of the time, and when trying to cross into Austria was caught, detained and at the age of 23, put into prison for 2 years. He stated; "When they first arrested me, a kind guard felt sorry for me and left a window open so that I could escape. I hesitated and did not take the opportunity. Because of not using my logic, I was locked up for two years. This was a lesson I never forgot: When a good proposition presents itself, seize it, because if you don't, you may live to regret it". In 1977 Dr. von Hagens invented Plastination, his groundbreaking technology for preserving specimens which is used to create the BODY WORLDS exhibitions. He patented the method and over the next six years spent all his energy working on his invention. In 1992, Dr. Gunther von Hagens married Dr. Angelina Whalley, a physician who works as his business manager and is the designer of the BODY WORLDS exhibitions. Dr. Von Hagens has three children, Rurik, Bera and Tona. Information from: http://www.koerperwelten.de/Downloads/BW_StudentGuide_corr_150507.pdf
===Plastination=== As stated above plastination is a form of body preservation invented by Gunther von Hagens, basically 70% of the human body is fluid which is necessary for living and eventually for decomposing. The idea of plastination is that these fluids and fats are replaced with reactive plastics which will not decompose, such as silicone rubber, or polyester resin, in a special vacuum. These plastics then harden when exposed to gas, light or heat curing which ensures that they are durable and firm. At first they are soft and flexible whish allows them to be moved into shapes and poses such as a football player or a swimmer, and when it hardens it freezes the bodies into position The specimens are dry, odourless and 'graspable', and as such are suitable both for educating medical students and exhibiting to the general public.
===Exhibit types=== There are several different types of exhibit in the Body Worlds, the whole body specimens take 1500 hours of dedicated work to produce, and show the body dissected to show the minute details of nerves and muscles. The 'exploded-view' specimens have the body parts moved in all different directions to show the body as a whole, and the 'open-door' specimens are almost hinged which allows a full inspection of the inner body. Another style of exhibit is the 'sheet-plastinate' which involves slices being cut from a frozen organ or body before plastination, and the sizes of these slices will vary depending on the part of the body they are from, for example 3.5mm for the brain and 5mm for a slice of the abdomen. There are a large amount of these cross sections throughout the museum, although there is only one full body plastinates which is made up entirely of these 'slices'.
===Some main exhibits=== The Swimmer: An exhibit in which the body has been divided into two halves, the organs have been left in their original positions in whichever side of the body they are normally in. You can actually see from the form of the body, the muscle shape and the size of the heart as well as the lungs that the specimen was a swimmer in life, and the pose that the exhibit has been put into emphasises the usual pose that a swimmer would be in when in the water.
Body Slices: Possibly the best exhibit in the show in which the whole body has been cut into slices of different dimensions and thickness and then spread over 20 feet so you can actually look between each of the slices in it's correct position in the body and see a cross-section of that part of the body and exactly what it really looks like as well as the dimensions. For example being able to see the brain in about 4 different cross sections.
The Split Jumper: Basically it was a cut away of the body so it showed the brain and spine at the back, internal organs as a front, and the left and right sides of the body split to either side. This allows the observer to see far more of the internal organs than many of the other exhibits...even if it does look slightly like an alien!
The Poker playing trio: Featured in the movie Casino Royale (2006), in the player on the right, both parietal bones were lifted to make the brain visible from behind. The brain has been horizontally sectioned and folded out. Beneath it is the cerebellum, below which the spinal cord is visible inside the vertebral canal. In the player on the left, the abdomen has been opened, giving a view of the intestinal loops. (Wikipedia)
===Sources=== For plastination to have continued for its time period sources need to be found for different specimens and they get them from the following places: •From people who in life declared that they would want to be of use to science after their death and have signed the forms stating that they agree to be plastinated. • From local authorities in China and Russia donate unclaimed corpses to the project • Specimens from former anatomical collections, which are sometimes more than 100 years old.
===Ethics=== There has been a great deal of discussion on the ethics of von Hagens work, some religious organisations will always disagree with using deceased bodies in such a way to display to the masses, although considering that they believe that the soul leaves the body once dead there should be no complaint. Others such as the Catholic Church states that he is cheapening human life because it shows no reverence to the human body and is far more artistic than educational (this was one of my complaints as well, as I will explain below). The use of children and babies has caused a fair amount of controversy, firstly because they cannot give informed consent and this it is therefore dependent on the parents, and secondly because people have an instinctive reaction about children and seeing them dead will cause complaint as it just seems wrong. In an ethical analysis, Thomas Hibbs, Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Culture at Baylor University, compares the cadaver displays to pornography in that they reduce the subject to "the manipulation of body parts stripped of any larger human significance." This would appear to be a rather harsh comparison but you can see where he is coming from.
Personally though I can see no real ethical problem with the display, yes some people may be offended by it, yes some people may be feel that it is too gruesome, and yes some people will have religious objections to the project. The basic line here is, if you want to go, then go, if you don't - then stop complaining.
===My thoughts=== Now, ethical considerations aside as I have just explained I can see none, I felt there were good and bad points to the exhibition. Overall, I cannot say I enjoyed it for reasons I will explain, but there some good points as well.
Considering I was viewing this exhibition at a science museum I was, fairly understandably, expecting a scientific demonstration. Now, to give credit, some of them were; the swimmer, the split jumper, the admiral, and the body split into slices, all of these were based on science and had great educational value, as you could see the body in ways that it had never been seen before. None of them were gruesome, but showed and explained the way the body was made up. Likewise the exhibits of single body parts in the glass cases were fitting fore a scientific exhibition. My main complaint with this was that many of the exhibits were not science but art, now had I been in art museum that would have been acceptable, but this was portrayed as a scientific exhibition that was aimed at educating a community about the biology of the human body. There were two specimens that really demonstrate this, the first would be the poker players and the second one was the piece where the woman was portrayed as leaving her skin on the rock behind her and rising from it, now granted they were made with an immense amount of skill, but I learned very little from them. It was very much an artist showing off, rather than a scientist demonstrating his skill.
My second complaint with the exhibition was how patronising the information was. This was particularly obvious with the specimens in the glass cases, the information that was given about them was of the style that any child learns at about 13, and that's before GCSE's. I went in expecting to learn something new, but instead found that the information on the cases itself was almost enough to put me off. Yes, children will be going to see the exhibition, but the information should not be dumbed down so much solely so it can be understood by a child. The parents should be able to explain the basis of each specimen without those of us who do know something of biology (and I am by no means an expert) finding that we are being patronised to the hilt.
However, the main thing that really aggravated me was the sheer arrogance of Gunther von Hagen, and this to me was shown in a series of different ways. Firstly, relating to my original point, he seems to think of himself as an 'artist extraordinaire', the positioning of many of the bodies was so obviously showing off. I don't know why this annoyed me as much as it did...perhaps because this was meant to be science not art, or maybe because I couldn't see it as art. Secondly, the application form. Now, if you were writing an application form would you put 'people often ask, with respect, awe and admiration, what motives you have for donating your body for plastination?' Three guesses which bit got my goat? Yep, 'with respect, awe and admiration', this is flattering the donor's ego and hinting at the answer they should be giving, and that to me is not the way a scientific donor form should be phrased. The overwhelming impression I got from this show was arrogance, and I automatically take a dislike to arrogance!
On a higher note however, much of the literature and artwork included on the walls was very interesting and actually made me stop and read, even when I was getting bored by the lack of variation in the exhibits, and I found many of them to be far more to my intellectual level than the descriptions Gunther von Hagens had written. My only issue with some of the literature, usually written by von Hagens, was that he seemed far too interested in blowing his own trumpet to actually understand the impact that the ancient scientists and doctors had on the world, for example his criticism of Galen is awful. Far too much time is spent putting them down and stating why they were wrong, rather than looking at it in the contexts of the time and understanding where they were coming from.
Conclusion
It was interesting to begin with, some of the exhibits count as science and the literature was interesting...unfortunately that's all the good I can say about it...
