Body Worlds

Where do death, plastic, Chicago, and Germany come together? Body Worlds, an exhibit of human bodies that have been plasticized by a German scientist and are now on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The exhibit manages to be weird, disgusting, cool, and fascinating all at the same time. Where else can one find muscles flying off the bones in all directions, real nerve fibers and spinal cord still attached, and a man holding his brain in his hand while riding a horse? I spent over an hour sitting next to a guy holding up his skin for the world to see. Some of the displays evade description, yet others are real eye-openers to the ravages of disease on the body. There are comparisons of healthy lungs to those of smokers, a slice of a brain with a tumor, a stomach with ulcers, body slices of obese people, joints from people with arthritis, a skeleton with scoliosis, and many more things that one almost never gets to see up close and in person. Some of the most fascinating are the people posed with nothing but their network of arteries in place. It is amazing how many there actually are. Even with how fascinatingly complex the bodies are, it is difficult to keep from thinking about who they were while they were still alive, walking around like you and me. They used to have lives, friends, families, thoughts, and emotions. The signs describing the bodies seemed very cold when they described them, not as men and women, but as "plasticines." One of the cadavers was a pregnant lady who was displayed along with her infant who had died along with her. Among the most difficult things to look at were the body parts of young children and babies. In the end, one has to realize that, although they used to be living human beings, all that is left on display is their plasticized body, not themselves.