Monday I took the opportunity to go to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry with my brother and sister to go see the Body Worlds 2 Exhibit.
This is not for the squeamish as the entire exhibit is dedicated to the work of Dr. Gunther von Hagens who invented the technique of plastination in order to replace the water and fat in tissue for preservation of anatomical specimens. They show EVERYTHING, if it's a part of the human body it's in the exhibit... from lungs and brains (both healthy and diseased) to genitalia and fingernails. Entire bodies are shown (minus the skin, of course) in various positions of standing or motion, men and women (even a pregnant one), there are even whole bodies which have been sliced both vertically and horizontally. Here is a picture of the veins in a human hand (stolen from the MSI website):
This is not for the squeamish as the entire exhibit is dedicated to the work of Dr. Gunther von Hagens who invented the technique of plastination in order to replace the water and fat in tissue for preservation of anatomical specimens. They show EVERYTHING, if it's a part of the human body it's in the exhibit... from lungs and brains (both healthy and diseased) to genitalia and fingernails. Entire bodies are shown (minus the skin, of course) in various positions of standing or motion, men and women (even a pregnant one), there are even whole bodies which have been sliced both vertically and horizontally. Here is a picture of the veins in a human hand (stolen from the MSI website):
They had a full vein version of a chicken (only slightly disturbing) and there is even a full grown camel, with it's head sliced into three parts, along with it's offspring which had been given the plastination treatement.
