"Body Worlds" are back Death in plastic

Gunther von Hagens have dominion over the ages: in his anatomy show he
shows dead people and animals - presentation of bodies reaps
popularity and protest. 26 million people worldwide now have the
exhibition "Body Worlds" seen. This success will now tie Gunther von
Hagens. For this, he breaks with the intent to revoke it after his
procedure preserved human and animal corpses to the scene of Germany.

A man on a sleigh, pulled by four reindeer: Our illustration shows one
of the new exhibits, which can be seen in the anatomical exhibition
"Body Worlds" in Heidelberg.

Now "Dr. Death" back in Germany - and the "Bild" newspaper, he has
already given an interview. Gunther von Hagens, an anatomist of modern
times most controversial shows, after nearly five years of abstinence
his exhibition "Body Worlds". In Heidelberg, where von Hagens founded
in 1993 his Institute for Plastination, can be seen today at around
200 human specimens. Among the exhibited bodies, there are
"innovations" like an ostrich or a dancer who balances on his brain.

Attack on morality and justice?

The return of the exhibition will once again rise to the question:
Will this posthumous dignity of man-made final - and even if he has
explained in his lifetime with the use of his body for scientific
purposes agree? Can we recycle dead people and animals in terms of
works of art? Does the public display of dead even with the paragraph
168 of the Penal Code, which is the disturbance of the peace of the
dead criminal offense?

Since the initial presentation of the "Body Worlds" in 1997, the
potential audience is split into two camps. Then there were those who
are fascinated by the insights into human anatomy, which has mediated
the visit to the exhibition a better understanding of their own
bodies, they could even abruptly swear to respect the future better
for him. Opponents felt the show in a medieval carnival spectacle
transported back to the very human curiosity and appealed to the bigs,
it triggers, calculated.

Cadavers churning

For von Hagens, born Gunther Gerhard Liebchen in 1945 as Poland, the
bill is paid off. The man who looks like a series of anatomical
research-based Renaissance artists like Leonardo da Vinci, is now a
global business with the Lord's death. Since he has perfected the
preservation of human and animal specimens by plastination, he
prepares bodies and organs on the assembly line for eternity. In his
"Plastinarium", an abandoned textile mill in Brandenburg Guben, all
year round, visitors can experience the "Exhibition of Real Human"
first hand: In addition to an exhibition on the history of anatomy
there is a glass workshop. In it, students can try themselves at once
a living object, the process of plastination, as its true inventor von
Hagens.

Criticism of his work, von Hagens met by the fact that he behaves like
a rebel and misunderstood artist. A certain resemblance to Joseph
Beuys, he emphasizes, as he is never without those wide-brimmed black
hat, shows the well bore the provocative performance artists always.
For the exhibition he prepared people not only in natural postures,
but also as a quotation famous works of art: a man of his own skin,
holding in his hand like the skinned in the depiction of the Last
Judgement by Michelangelo, or a woman whose belly a reference to a
number of paintings by the surrealist Salvador Dali - in several
drawers open.

At this border - the transition from the academic preparation for the
art object - to ignite the public, moral and ethical debate. Professor
Norbert Paul, Director of the Institute of History, Philosophy and
Ethics of Medicine at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, has
dealt extensively with the anatomy show. The question of whether
actual anatomical interest the audience in droves to the Body Worlds
exhibition is driving, he answered with a clear no. "Mr. von Hagens
gives us preparations on a way that is aesthetically beautiful, and so
in essence the anatomy of the 16th, 17th and 18th century follows. It
has little to do with recent anatomical research, yes to is part of
molecular anatomy, "says Paul.

The scientific benefits of the products keeps the medical ethicists
because of progress in the three-dimensional imaging to be limited. In
his view, such preparations are in medical education. Von Hagens
scientific argument he considers advanced, "for me the most is a kind
of marketplace medicine".

Physicians uphold the piety

The public display of dead for commercial purposes or even a section,
such as von Hagens is it organized in 2002 in London, for the medical
ethicist Paul morally questionable. Dealing with drugs - parts of
human body - is very different from the medical practice. "In anatomy,
it has been for many decades - especially after the terrible
experiences during the Third Reich - good morals and law, that piety
is preserved in each case to times of my medical school was the entire
semester after completion of the anatomical lessons held on. attend
the funeral of the preparations. "