Plastination creation station
Gunter Von Hagens makes bodies
last forever & travels the globe with his exhibit Body Worlds.
Mary Huerter
Guenther Von Hagens is a very interesting sort of man. He is the sort of man that will one day make
a pretty penny for one very lucky biographer.
Until then, he is the sort of man that one will hear about in little
snippets on public radio, read about in obscure foreign magazines, and have
forced upon oneself while rummaging through the high school newspaper.
Von Hagen grew up in East Germany in the sixties. His youth was interesting but entirely
irrelevant, and as such, won’t be mentioned here. One would be well-advised to read up on his early life some
time.
In 1977 Guenther Von Hagens’s story becomes more interesting than the
already interesting story of a young man who grew up in East Germany in the
sixties, because that this the year in which he invented a process called
plastination.
Plastination is an incredible process but before discussing the process
it is important to note that “plastination” is an incredible word. Upon reading the word “plastination,” one
can’t help but agonize over what it could possibly mean.
If one were to come across the word “plastination” while leisurely reading
their local high school paper, a fun thing to do might be to postulate as
to the potential meanings of such a word.
If ones perusal is more hurried, it may be in one’s best
interest to give the word a little less thought and
continue with learning the process as it will likely be explained later in
the article.
Von Hagens developed plastination while working at the University of
Heidelberg in West Germany.
Plastination is a way to conserve a dead body or individual body parts
by replacing all of the fat and water in the organs and body with various
polymers that give the specimens different levels of hardness and opacity. Once a specimen has been plastinated, it is
hard, durable, odor-free and will not decay.
It can be stored on a shelf in much the manner that one would store a
book or a basketball.
Soon after he first developed plastination, Von Hagens began to travel
around Europe putting his plastinated specimens on display in an exhibit called
“Body Worlds.”
The Body Worlds press packet says that the exhibit is of an invaluable
education nature and that, “when viewing the exhibits we can become aware of
the naturalness of our bodies and recognize the individuality and anatomical
beauty inside.”
As one can probably imagine, this was controversial on many levels.
On one hand, it is important for people to see how they work on the
inside and in many cases seeing the beauty and intricacy of their bodies may
prompt them to take better care of themselves.
The exhibit also provides viewers a wonderful opportunity to ponder
ideas of life and death on a more philosophical level when they see human being
eternalized with their insides on the outside.
Body Worlds is not the only organization that sees the value of
plastination – many legitimate education and medical institutions recognize
plastination as a practical method of preserving bodies.
The University of Michigan has a plastination lab that does outreach
programs with the community – they hand out plastinated lungs of both smokers
and nonsmokers for use in health classes at local junior highs and send grogs,
pig brains, and cow eyes to high schools across Michigan.
Plastination may even end up appealing to those who have taken offense
to the waste of life realized in high school biology labs where hundreds of
frogs, cats, mice, snakes, worms, and starfish are sliced and diced every
year. With the use of plastination,
only a few of each of these specimens would be all that is ever required for a
school to teach biology classes until its heart is content.
On the other hand, many aspects of plastination are seen as
objectionable from myriad viewpoints.
It’s hardly necessary to go into each of the individual groups that are
outraged at the prospect of slicing up dead bodies, pumping them full of
plastic, and charging admission.
Some of Von Hagens’s more artistic anatomical projects are inciting
further outrage among the masses. The
more controversial pieces include a man holding his own skin, a pregnant woman,
and a skulless man atop a horse whose brain is resting in the man’s
outstretched hand.
Religious groups are outraged; humanitarian groups are outraged; animal
rights groups are outraged; someone somewhere probably sees it as a threat to
life as we know it – nothing out of the ordinary.
Von Hagen has also encountered his fair share of legal troubles. In recent years he has been charged with
crimes in various countries all over Europe ranging from stealing bodies from
psychiatric hospitals in Kyrgyzstan to lying about his professorship at various
German and Eastern European universities.
He vehemently denies all charges against him, proclaims his dedication
to the progression of modern science, and continues to travel Europe educating
the ignorant masses on what he endearingly refers to as their “inner face.”
Plastination has a definite educational value in that few things prompt
people to take care of their health more than seeing, from the inside, just
exactly what activities like smoking are doing to their bodies.
Von hagens’s story became one of note when he invented a process called
plastination in 1977. plastination is a
nice sort of word. If one were to hear
such a word, one might being, a good thing to do might be to postulate on the
possible definitions of plastination.
If you find yourself befuddled by the thought of such a word – your
curiousity piqued by the prospect of plastinating something – then this is the
story for you. If not, don’t worry too
much, you can’t win them all.