Bodies The Exhibit
 

Just when you think you have seen everything...
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=6455120&ch=4226713&src=news

I saw that exhibit last year and it's really cool--a little overwhelming towards the end though.

Been around for years. I will see it one of these days.

it's a fascinating display - but there are areas some folks may want to skip.

I worked on the exhibit when it was here over a year ago and it is coming back to our museum in March.

When I first heard about it I thought it was disgusting, when I saw it I thought it was very interesting, but then I got a little disturbed at the artistic way some of the bodies are displayed. As in using dead bodies for art... yuck.

I must say it is very educational, we get a lot of med students through here when the show is on. And I did find my self examining the "exhibits" whenever I had a ache or pain.

It is also a little creepy when I had to work in the gallery all by myself. :eek:

They keep insisting that all the bodies are from volunteers... and yes people do fill out cards donating their bodies when the show is on here.

saw it 4 years ago in CLE. Morbidly fascinating.

I'm surprised there aren't really tight regulations requiring the documentation of exactly where each of those bodies came from, who they are, etc.

Would make a good horror movie- the museum is really a front for a political group or something, and their enemies end up being "art."

I think it was called "House of Wax" with Vincent Price.

I like the way you think.

Here I've been just dumping bodies in the back yard like a shmuck.....

Showing in San Antonio,Tx now.
Rika

Ahem... museum is owned by the state of California *cough*

Has anyone pissed off Arnohled lately? ;)

German film 'anatomy' uses this exact collection

Not a bad flick, if you like horror...

I think the collection is great, and gives the public a much better sense of anatomy than a textbook can. A bit morbid to use human tisue as 'art' perhaps, but not a new idea; there is a very similar collection that is over 100 yrs old (dissected human sitting on dissected horse, etc)

I saw it in Toronto about 2 years ago. At the same time I was taking an orthopedics class in engineering so it was even more interesting for me. If you get the chance, check it out.

I went. I just kept thinking to myself "it's really just Beef Jerkey, it's really just Beef Jerkey..."

There's a section on unborn children and lots of displays of disease, Cancer, etc. etc in different parts of the body..

Kinda creepy, but all in the name of science 'eh.

Love the guys quote:

I heard that many of the subjects were Chinese nationals who "donated" their bodies, as in prisoners who were executed who "donated" their bodies.

When my wife & I went we were surprised to see the number of people who brought their kids. They were all very fascinated. I thought the displays concerning disease probably made impressions on lots of people, for instance the samples of lung tissues showing differences between non smokers', smokers' lungs and those with cancer.

I quit about 6 weeks ago. I don't need to see that. OTOH, maybe I should....Ugh....

We took our kids, 7 and 10 yrs old, it was fascinating. Overpriced but still recommended.

Von Hagens is a very controversial figure in Germany. Numerous lawsuits around his exhibits, which have been around 10 years, drove his shows out of the country. He has factory size operations in a depressed East German town, Eastern Europe and China. The fact that he plastinates bodies in China is what brought up the question, where the "volunteers" came from in a communist country. I do not think that this issue was ever cleared up properly. Nowadays he has enough volunteers, where this probably is a non issue.

While I find the plastination method he invented ingenious and useful in science and education, I do not care for his commercialized exhibits and his recent attempt to start selling body parts to the general population as art. The commercialization and the art is what I do not agree with. Showing body parts in public for science education is great - i.e. the smoker's lungs or exhibits showing disease.

Isn't it a shame that a brilliant MD has nothing better to do with his technology and knowledge than to self promote and financially profit through his "art"? What happened to the Hippocratic oath?

Cheers,

George