Exhibit Review: Body Worlds

by Laura Seewoester

Dr. Angelina Whalley is gregarious, warm and inviting. She is learning to flamenco dance and plays the piano. She is the exact opposite of what one would expect from the woman who designs the Body Worlds exhibit. I know I expected someone bookish, shy, eccentric, and slightly morbid, but she is just like any other person, any other doctor. Dr. Whalley even says that before she got involved with plastination, she never would have thought she’d be doing what she does today.

Originally, Dr. Whalley wanted to be a surgeon, however decided to take an extra few anatomy classes first at the University of Heidelberg. This is also where Dr. Gunther von Hagens invented and continued his plastination technique. They met, immediately fell in love, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Now, Dr. von Hagens and Dr. Whalley have three exhibits that tour world wide. The Body Worlds exhibit is a display of mostly human bodies that have been preserved through the process called plastination. In a nutshell, Dr. von Hagens dissects human bodies and turns them into plastic, keeping them from decomposing. The higher purpose behind this seemingly macabre career choice is to not only teach the public about human and animal anatomy, but also to show how certain lifestyles physically affect the body. The most obvious example being the healthy lung compared to the lung of a smoker. We’ve all seen photos of the same thing, but there is a special sense of reality that kicks in when viewing the actual thing.

The exhibit runs December 9th to May 28th at the Museum of Nature and Science in Fair Park. The pictures don’t really do justice to the exhibit, it’s definitely a "must see for yourself."