CHICAGO - These life-like naked corpses literally let it all
hang out: the veins, the muscles, the bones, everything.
One is leaping downward to grab a soccer ball, another is
mounted on a bicycle, a third stands with his arms out sporting
a big grin and a white hat as though at any moment he'll break
out in song.
As ghoulish as that sounds, record crowds are lining up to
see dead people - actual, preserved humans who in death have
become rock stars of the natural-history museum world - at Body
Worlds exhibits at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago
and Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland. Both remain until
September.
They're so popular that the exhibits attracted 930,000 people
over nine months to the California Science Center in Los Angeles,
where they made their U.S. debut over the past year. Body Worlds
also has been seen by more than 16 million people in more than
a dozen nations.
Universe Within, a similar exhibit not connected with the
company behind Body Worlds, opened to promising interest at
the Nob Hill Masonic Center in San Francisco in late March.
Preserved in natural colors
What sets these corpses apart from other anatomy lessons is
that they're preserved through a process known as "plastination"
in which their bodies are dissected fully or partially and exposed
to a reactive polymer that allows the body parts to be shown
in their natural colors. It's a painstaking process invented
in 1977 by Body Worlds creator Gunther von Hagens of Germany.
The result is an opportunity to see the inside of the body as
it really looks. More than 300 corpses have been entirely or
partly plastinated by von Hagens at a factory in China. People
arrange to have their bodies donated when they die.
"This is the best exhibit I've ever seen, and I've worked
here for 20 years," says Diane Perlov, senior vice president
for exhibits at the California Science Center. "I've never seen
an exhibit where people were more actively engaged in learning.
People are absolutely mesmerized by what they get to see."
Much to even von Hagens' surprise, Body Worlds faced virtually
no protest or controversy in the USA. That wasn't the case in
Germany and Great Britain, where some took offense to what they
saw as an indecent display.
In Los Angeles, the biggest stir came last month when two
women stole one of five plastinated fetuses. While the motive
remains unclear, Detective Willem Erkelens of the Los Angeles
Police Department says undisclosed evidence seems to indicate
the crime wasn't an anti-abortion statement.
(The 15-week-old fetus was a stillborn, not the result of
an abortion, Body Worlds officials say.)
Instead of a furor, the exhibits largely have been well received,
earning plaudits from such celebrities as Nicole Kidman, Dustin
Hoffman and Charlize Theron.
The only precaution von Hagens has urged is to place the reproductive
system sections in a private area so visitors can decide whether
to view them; the three U.S. museums have observed his request.
The Museum of Science and Industry also requires visitors
under 13 to be escorted by an adult, the first such age restriction
in museum history.
"You know, compared to Europe, we regard the U.S. as quite
puritanical," says von Hagens, long a controversial medical
figure who conducted Britain's first public autopsy in 170 years
in 2002. "But, really, in America, there's been nothing. I think
something has shifted in American society. They seem to enjoy
that they can see everything."
He means everything. Aside from the fact that the corpses
are completely naked, one shows blackened lungs from a lifetime
of smoking and another shows an obese person's insides to explain
how the heft puts stress on the rest of the body. There also
are brain tumors, hip replacements and pacemakers.
Making the dead life-like
Mostly, the exhibits show the body in various common actions:
running, sitting, standing. Typically, visitors look at their
own body parts that correspond to those being described.
At a display case showing a blackened lung, Candy Tomasic
of Chicago was forcing her 7-year-old daughter Madeleine, 6-year-old
son Max and 5-year-old niece Andrea to pinky-swear never to
smoke.
"Most of the time all you see is the skeleton, but here you
see the actual visages, too," says Paul Tomasic, Candy's husband.
"You get the sense here that it's not just a dead body but part
of someone who was real."
Indeed. Whereas medical students typically are urged not to
personalize the corpses they dissect in anatomy classes, von
Hagens believes that making the dead more life-like is the best
way to help the public make the connections between the exhibit
and their own living bodies.
Body Worlds also is a huge attraction for art classes such
as the one teacher Louise Grissinger brought from Geneva High
School in suburban Chicago. The class recently had finished
a unit on Leonardo da Vinci, famous for his anatomical drawings.
"You get a good sense of how the body is assembled," Grissinger
says. "This is a great opportunity for the kids to learn about
anatomy, science and culture."
Her students seemed to appreciate the field trip, despite
their fearful expectations. "I wasn't really as grossed out
by it as I thought I'd be," says senior Kristen Cella, 17. "It
takes apart the body in many different ways. I thought it was
interesting. We did have a few queasy ones, though."
Admission to the Cleveland exhibit ranges from $13 to $23.
In Chicago, the range is $11 to $21.
