Dr. Jekyll Or Mr. Hyde?

Hey guys :)

What’s up? Having a lovely Thursday evening? Today is my day off and I thought I’d seize the opportunity to write another blog post. And since our current topic is health, I racked my brain what health-related topic would be worth talking about and remembered that I spent half my Easter break in museums and exhibitions because the weather was just so lousy.

 

Hang on, how do museums relate to health? In fact, they generally don’t, but the most interesting exhibition of the ones I saw this year does.

It’s Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds. 

Have you ever heard of it? Or even been there? It’s quite famous. Right now you can see part of it in Munich and part of it in New York, but since it’s a traveling exhibition, it’ll be somewhere else soon, too.

Before I go into detail, I have to admit something else: I hesitated a long time before I finally decided to go and see the exhibition because of what I like to call the Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde question. But wait, I’ll fill you in on the background first.

Gunther von Hagens, a German scientist, invented a method called plastination that enables him to conserve all parts of a body in their original condition. So basically, he stops corpses from decaying. (Gross? Maybe a little.) This method is used to exhibit different parts of the body like muscles, sinews, organs, bones and any other tissue – or even the whole body. It actually looks like the skeletons and plastic organs you have in biology class to illustrate where your shin is and where the liver. Just that it’s made from real bones and organs.

You might think this is really off-putting, but surprisingly it’s not. Believe me.

Back to why I was hesitating: there are contradictory stories where Gunthar von Hagens gets the corpses for plastination. Voices have been raised against him, saying that von Hagens’ plastinates are made from the bodies of executed prisoners from China and deceased patients from Russian hospitals. Wikipedia claims that these accusations have been disproved, referring to a statement by Hagens himself (not the best source to rely on, in my eyes). I researched the topic a bit further but unfortunately, I only came to a dead end. Until today, I’m still not sure what to think of von Hagens - and I can’t help but think of the famous story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

When friends asked me whether I wanted to join them for the exhibition, though, curiosity finally won over my moral concerns and I accepted.

So I went to look at plastinated corpses. If I say it like this, I can’t deny it sounds disgusting, if not a little macabre.

Still, I swear it wasn’t. It was extremely interesting, informative and mostly illustrative. Never before had I seen all those parts of the body in real life, and still, they looked less fleshy than I had expected – more as if they were made of plastic. There were small info plates attached to all the different body parts exhibited, where their functions and functioning was explained.

You could learn a lot just from looking at the organ or bone in front of you and read a little of the none-too-scientific explanations attached. Who would know what the spleen is good for? Before reading about it, I was happy to know that I’ve got one and around where it’s located.

Okay, to be honest, there was some revolting stuff, too. You could compare normal lungs to the ones of a chain-smoker (they’re jet black). You could get an impression of how many times bigger a fatty liver is than a healthy one (it’s unbelievably huge!) or what hepatic cirrhosis looks like (gross, chiefly). Have you ever seen kidney stones? Or the cross-section of a clinically obese person?

It’s the perfect opportunity to call back to mind why you shouldn’t smoke and drink too much or have candy ten times a day. In theory, we all know how to live healthy, but witnessing the consequences of excessive eating, drinking, smoking, no exercise and all our other more or less little vices adds another level to it.

Yet, not being too squeamish probably helps when you go see that exhibition. On the other hand, I know people who can’t see blood but had no problems scrutinizing those bodies. Maybe, that’s thanks to the way the bodies are exhibited, too: they don’t lie in front of you like on an autopsy table. Instead, you can see them in different positions, such as playing chess or basketball, ice-skating, jumping or sprinting. I know many people like that a lot about the exhibition. Personally, I found it kind of unnecessary and incoherent, though.

So, would I recommend Body Worlds? Yes, I would. At least, I’d recommend it to anyone who’s interested in medical issues, body functions, biology …and in knowing what they look like on the inside.

Still, it should be emphasized that I’m absolutely not sure what to think of the way von Hagens plastinates corpses. In case you know more about that, please tell me!!

Bye-bye :)