Body Worlds is a where to shoot how to

[sturmruger]

The exhibition features about 200 authentic human specimens, including entire bodies, individual organs and transparent body slices that have been preserved through the process of Plastination, a technique that replaces bodily fluids and fat with reactive plastics. BODY WORLDS offers a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see and understand our own physiology and health and to gain new appreciation and respect for what it means to be human.

All I can say is "WOW" if you have a Body Worlds exhibit within a couple hours of you it is definitely worth seeing. I think my wife and I wondered through the exhibit for 2 hours. She is 28 weeks pregnant so the section with the unborn babies was kind of tough to go through, they all died of natural causes but it still was scary.

Ok on to the gun related portion of my post. It was really amazing how many large arteries the body has. After the first hour I started looking at the bodies in more of a morbid way. I was really thinking about shot placement and what areas to shoot at to get the body to stop working. After seeing how small the brain really is, it made me rethink if I would ever take a head shot. They actually have full bodies of nothing but blood vessels. Just imagine that picture of the arm but a full body! I think it would be cool if they had some bodies with serious trauma so that we could get an idea how different thing effect the body.

 

[hso]

Cool! Much better than looking up Grey's and drawing on targets.

 

[sturmruger]

Ya this was a little more realistic!

 

[K-Romulus]

saw it in Philly

Yeah, it was pretty cool.

So I wasn't the only one looking at the torso blood vessels . . .

After seeing that exhibit, I will never look at "large people" the same way again! (LOL)

 

[Terminight]

As a knife fighter I might have dug it even more than a shooter but unfortunatly, dispite the fact I was there, socioty does distract. Words of wisdom though; a burning bullet burns the arterys to the point that it almost stops the bleeding. That almost depends on how the bullet tears into the artery, see black hawk down. If you want to kill a man without considering organs or head trauma (aka head shot), consider a knife. Only a blade can cleanly sever an artery though the work is much more dissagreeable. By the way, I cant belive im talking to some of the people I must have seen in Philla.

 

[B Easy]

Saw it in Philly as well. It was pretty incredible.

Mommadukes was wondering why I spent so much time looking at the artery sections.

As a fairly big guy (bodybuilding big ) it made me take comfort that my subclavian is pretty well protected by the trapezius. I thought it'd be closer to the surface.

Medical education is good, but to be quite honest, I actually learned more about the "real estate" of the human body at BW than in all my medical training.

 

[Trebor]

Look very closely. There have been allegations that some of the bodies used were from executed criminals in China and were obtained under questionable circumstances. One article I read said a bullet hole could actually be seen in the brain of one of the exhibits. That one was later pulled.

No, I don't have the URL to the story I read, before anyone asks. If you are interested, do a Google search and you should find it.

 

[sturmruger]

Trebor last I heard they had something like 2500 people signed up to donate their bodies. I saw 2 people sign up just while I was there. I have heard that you can purchase body parts in China, but doubt that these guys would need to pay for a body when so many people are willing to donate theirs.

 

[Trebor]

Here's an article on the subject from April 2, 2006.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1744991,00.html

See this paragraph about six paragraphs down. Note the last sentance:

"Hongjin's record has been called into question in the past. In 2004 he and von Hagens were accused of using the bodies of political prisoners in a similar exhibition, Body Worlds - charges which they denied. They did, however, return seven bodies from their exhibition to China after two were found to have bullet holes in the back of their heads."

Here's a discussion on the topic at the forum at Snopes.com

http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=25;t=001190;p=1

 

[Mauserguy]

Certainly, I am not the only one disgusted by this exhibit. The fact that some of these people may have run afoul of a cold-hearted socialist system doesn't make me want to go see it, it makes me want to buy another thousand rounds of ammo to help defend my family and friends from this creepy, inhuman assault on human dignity. I'm not going to go see that. No way.
Mauserguy

 

[OrvilleYertleson]

It looks fascinating, but if Trebor and Mauserguy are right then I don't think I have any business attending the show.

Those bodies in the pictures look to be in excellent shape and young. With only 2500 donors signed up how often do you think they get a legitimate, dead, previously healthy, young, and non-mangled body for their exhibit?

 

[K-Romulus]

While at the Body Worlds exhibit, I wondered about the origins (national and personal) of the specimens and tried my best to discern the facial/ethnic features to humanize them.

Of the 50 or so in the exhibit, I only saw one that appeared to be Asian. The rest seemed European. Several had their faces intact, and obviously were European.

As for the other companies that seem to be copying Body Worlds, I don't know.

 

[c_yeager]

"Hongjin's record has been called into question in the past. In 2004 he and von Hagens were accused of using the bodies of political prisoners in a similar exhibition, Body Worlds - charges which they denied. They did, however, return seven bodies from their exhibition to China after two were found to have bullet holes in the back of their heads."

I suspect that the specimins used in his previous exhibition were obtained from the same sources that are used to obtain cadavers for medical research. These include multiple sources in the far-east as they have a very different cultural approach to the lifeless human body. It is quite possible that the corpses of the excecuted person's were put into the same system by the families of the individuals or by the state. If one wishes to charge Hongjin with inpropriety for using the bodies of people excecuted by corrupt states then they should probably level charges against most medical schools in the nation.

Any objection from China about this exhibit would almost certainly be politically motivated, rather than ethical. We are talking about an athiest communist government in a nation where most people believe in reincarnation, there arent a lot of people in that situation who are likely to be overly concerned with the end-use of a person's remains.

 

[Rezin]

Saw it in Philly. Fascinating.

Oh, and for those wondering where the bodies come from - http://www.koerperwelten.de/en/pages/koerperspende.asp

More -

Gunther von Hagens’ BODY WORLDS declares categorically that it has never used unclaimed or found bodies, or bodies of executed Chinese prisoners, in its anatomical exhibitions of real human bodies. After, DER SPIEGEL, a German publication reported the use of executed Chinese bodies in the BODY WORLDS exhibition, an interim injunction was taken against the SPIEGEL ONLINE GmbH.

In accordance with Germany’s laws, the SPIEGEL ONLINE GmbH is now restricted from claiming, among other things, either literally or by implication, that “Gunther von Hagens is exhibiting the corpses of executed Chinese in the BODY WORLDS exhibition.” According to the court, if the interim injunction is violated, the SPIEGEL ONLINE GmbH, must pay Dr. von Hagens a fine of 250,000 Euros. “I have never plastinated the bodies of executed persons, for, based on my ethical convictions, I disapprove of using such bodies for anatomical purposes,” Dr. von Hagens says.

 

[Freddymac]

the guy who does this is German

If he is the same person that I saw on the Discovery Channel. It takes about a year for each body acording to discovery. There is a lot of work that goes into making these things, and this guy has a bunch of assistants.

 

[Soybomb]

To my understanding there is body worlds, the original and then there are several knock offs. The original has been audited in 2004 by the California Science Center and proven to be legitimate in their claims of the bodies origins. Some of the knock offs however seem to still be debatable. Heres is one of them that I believe I heard mentioned as having only asian bodies and potentially of questionable origin http://www.bodiesrevealed.com/index-home.html

I'd love to see one of the exhibits.

 

[yy]

thanks for bringing this up

I saw it in Los Angeles.

original bodies? no casts or polymers? I dunno, some of the stuff were clearly polymer cast of the original (see blood vessel) and some had descriptions stating the specimen was not the original. And of course, there was the MRI section of the obese person.

Would it repulse folks to know that at least some of the body parts were actual organic specimen? Didn't bother me. Didn't get any visits from zombies afterwards either.

 

[hillbilly]

I saw it in Chicago and was completely disgusted by it.

I read a review that really encapsulated my opinion of it, but can't find the link any more.

Basically, I think this guy is a cheap imitation of Barnum, a post-modernist huckster looking for ways to shock people in a time when shock is supposed to be oh-so-blase.

Look....it's artistically-posed dead people!!! Wheeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I'm gonna charge you $28 a pop to see all the artistically-posed dead people!!!!!!!!!! Wheee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sorry, but isn't posing dead people a common trait of serial killers?

This guy is a second-rate idiot. He's typical of post-modernists who believe in "the heart" but only if you're talking about a meaty-pump for blood circulation.

hillbilly