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Experiencing Body Worlds: Voyeurism, Education, or Enlightenment?

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Abstract

Until the advent of plastinated cadavers, few outside the medical professions have had firsthand experience with human corpses. Such opportunities are now available at the Body Worlds exhibits of Gunther von Hagens. After an overview of these exhibits, we explore visitor responses as revealed in comment books available upon exiting the exhibit. Cultural, philosophical, and religious issues raised in the comments serve as a microcosm of society at large. The conclusion considers the challenge of such exhibits in introducing the public to science education, notes the image of the body as machine—so prevalent in the West—reflected in visitor comments, and finds hope that the exhibits promote, for many visitors, a sense of community among all humankind.

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Notes

  1. Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, 108.

  2. See, for instance, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,668874,00.html (last visited Feb 28, 2007).

  3. P. Herschovitch, “Rest in Plastic,” 828.

  4. D. Foster and T. Hibbs, “Inside Out,” 1P, 4P, 5P.

  5. P. Leiberich et al., “Body Worlds exhibition—Visitor attitudes and emotions,” 570–71.

  6. From a public lecture entitled Meet Dr. Gunther von Hagens: Inventor of Plastination and an Innovative Exhibit, given on June 1, 2006 in conjunction with the Denver Body Worlds Exhibit and placed on the Denver Museum of Nature and Science web site. This lecture is no longer available on line.

  7. G. von Hagens’ Body Worlds, “The Body Donation,” http://www.bodyworlds.com/en/bodydonation/body_donation_program.html (last visited Feb 28, 2007).

  8. Hans-Martin Sass’s report is available at http://www.koerperwelten.de/Downloads/ethics_summary.pdf (last visited Feb 28, 2007).

  9. The Science Museum of Minnesota statement on their review of the CSI report is no longer available on their web site.

  10. See http://dignityinboston.googlepages.com/?gclid=CK67j4PqnIoCFR8iIgoddFMahg (last visited Feb 28, 2007).

  11. For example, see the study by P. Leiberich et al., 570.

  12. T. Walter, “Body Worlds: clinical detachment and anatomical awe,” 464.

  13. Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies; Catalog on the Exhibition, ed. G. von Hagens and A. Whalley, 264.

  14. Leiberich et al., 572.

  15. G. von Hagens and A. Whalley, 266–67.

  16. G. von Hagens’ Body Worlds, “Questions and Answers,” http://www.bodyworlds.com/en/exhibitions/questions_answers.html (last visited Feb 28, 2007).

  17. Y. M. Barilan, “The story of the body and the story of the person: Towards an ethics of representing human bodies and body-parts,” 194.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Ibid, 196.

  20. Walter, 479.

  21. Ibid, 479.

  22. Leiberich et al., 570.

  23. Barilan, 202.

References

  • Barilan, Y. M. “The story of the body and the story of the person: Towards an ethics of representing human bodies and body-parts.” Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 8 (2005):193–205.

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  • Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies; Catalog on the Exhibition. Eds. G. von Hagens and A. Whalley; trans. F. Kelly. Heidelberg: Arts and Sciences and Institut fuer Plastination, 2005.

  • Herschovitch, P. “Rest in Plastic.” Review of the London Body Worlds exhibition of Gunther von Hagens. Science, February 7, 2003; 299:828.

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  • Leonardo da Vinci. The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. [Trans. Mrs. R. C. Bell.] Ed. J. P. Richter. Vol. 2. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1970.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Gunther von Hagens and Gail Hamburg of Body Worlds for expediting our examination of comments from each of the exhibits at which visitor books were collected and permission to use them in this article. We also thank Yidong Bai, Ph.D., for his translation of the Chinese comments from Singapore.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cellular and Structural Biology, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, 78229-3900, USA

    Charleen M. Moore

  2. Trinity University, One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX, 78212, USA

    C. Mackenzie Brown

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  1. Charleen M. Moore
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  2. C. Mackenzie Brown
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Correspondence to Charleen M. Moore.

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Moore, C.M., Brown, C.M. Experiencing Body Worlds: Voyeurism, Education, or Enlightenment?. J Med Humanit 28, 231–254 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-007-9042-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-007-9042-0

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