Human Bodies on Display

Over the past 20-30 years we have been bombarded with exhibitions of dissected human cadavers in exhibition-like contexts. Every large city has been plastered with large posters showing flayed corpses posed in some sort of athletic gesture advertizing "an educational experience" like no other.

 Granted, I am fascinated like many others, and agree that it can be an amazingly educational experience, but there are some ethical issues to consider. First and foremost, who were these people? And, is this a truly educational endeavor or simply a money-making enterprise? We have a long history of carnival side-shows with "punks in bottles", mummies, and grotesque human artifacts on display that have nothing to do with science or education, but are only to satisfy our morbid curiosity and eagerness to be grossed out.

Over the years, these side-show and circus exhibits have been toned down or dismantled. Museums have put away their mummies and other human remains, partly out of decorum and respect, partly out of political correctness, and partly for political and cultural reasons.

Vesalius. Click to enlarge.

Gunther von Hagens

Enter German anatomist Gunther von Hagens, who has made a life's work out of the process he invented in the late 1970's at the University of Heidelberg: the plastination technique. (left)  Dr. von Hagens has steadfastly maintained his aim as being educational and has made it clear that his subjects (he calls them donors) were all people who willingly donated their remains to him and his organization for the purpose of education and science. His Body Worlds exhibitions have been circling the globe for decades now. (video) The sometimes shocking aspect (besides the obvious) is that the bodies are often posed in disarmingly alive postures, performing athletic actions, or with props that speak of the everyday. Some "exploded" views create meat and tissue abstractions, which are at once informative, beautiful and odd. These have historical precedents in the 16th Century drawings of Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), author of De Humani Corpis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body), a beautiful and revolutionary Renaissance study of human body.

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

 Dr. von Hagens is also featured in a television series from the Institute for Plastination in Heidelberg that centers on anatomy education, using the dissection and anatomizing of cadavers. This first program of the series, Minutes From Death has a good introduction from Dr. von Hagens.

In these dozens of programs, he demonstrates various physiological characteristics of our bodies to a live studio audience. Other series of programs are called Autopsy: Life & Death and Autopsy: Emergency Room. This video excerpt from Anatomy of Movement shows the presenter describing a dissection to the audience while Dr. von Hagens is adroitly cutting away at a hanging cadaver. Obviously shock-value is part of the program's success, but the ability to demonstrate various aspects of our physical machine in such a clear and unambiguous way makes this program one of the most interesting human physiology shows I have ever seen. Highly recommended.

The ethical controversy I first alluded to occurs when we find that there is a competing exhibition of similarly plastinated bodies confusingly called "Bodies: the Exhibition", or "Bodies Revealed", and "Our Body: The Universe Within". They use many of the same advertizing and display techniques seen in the Body Worlds venues. The big difference is that these bodies are all from China and from suspect sources or provenance. ABCNews' program 20/20 produced a major report exposing the "secret trade in Chinese bodies". They went to the plastination labs in China to interview the "Doctors" and found nothing but seedy back-alley sheds with vats of human body parts, and workers ducking for cover. Conflicting testimony and law suits have resulted from the publicity, including accusations of von Hagens' lab being involved in a smear campaign, but the ethical questions remain: Were these bodies from executed Chinese prisoners and the unclaimed poor? Is this enterprise solely a money making enterprise? Are there any redeeming scientific or educational qualities to these exhibitions or are they simply poor imitations of von Hagens' Body Worlds?

Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón, Havana, Cuba

I went to Cuba in 1976. It was something that only tourists from Canada and Iron Curtain countries were able to do at the time. We stayed at Veradero which was still largely undeveloped, with some of the villas abandoned and still empty since the exodus after the revolution. We visited the Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón in the Vedado neighborhood of Havana. It was SPECTACULAR and was the first richly ornate cemetery I had ever seen. Here are just a few examples from my slides of the trip.

The chapel as it looked in 1976, before the influx of tourists.

The chapel in 2006. (photo by Dirk van der Made)

I wish I could go back and rephotograph more of this amazing place. With the saturated blue skies and the lush tropical vegetation, it seemed so alive compared to the grey Paris cemeteries....

Insects and Determining Time of Death

I am back.....
My sincere apologies for the long absence. Now to get to the meat of things....

I just finished reading an interesting little book called Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death by Jessica Snyder Sachs (Basic Books: New York, 2001). It outlines recent (now 10 year-old) developments in the determination of an accurate time of death compared to what was previously thought. It seems that progressively since the 19th century and earlier, medico-forensic determinations of time of death have been inversely accurate compared to the beliefs of the time. The more we learned about the processes going on within both newly dead and long-term decaying bodies, the less accurate our estimates became because we could no longer depend on the inaccurately definitive assumptions of previous generations. This was very problematic when it came to the identification of missing persons and corroborating or breaking suspects' alibis. Justice was not being served.

This book outlines the history of how forensic science evolved and eventually turned to entomology and botany to increase the tools available to homicide investigators. Although a bit "clinical", I still found it a fascinating read. As a history, it names most of the important scientists and researchers who have lead the way to establish what we now take for granted when we watch a CSI type television program. Among the names featured in the book is Bill Bass (see my entry for June 7, 2010, "The Body Farm") who was one of, if not the first to use actual human cadavers for field study research into insect invasion, long-term decay, and the application and study of environmental and situational controls.

For those interested in the criminalistic side of things, this is a must-read.

In a slightly different vein, I just learned that Dr. Stanley Burns has recently published the third volume of Sleeping Beauties. The first two volumes are long out-of-print and quite valuable. Although this one is of a smaller format, I am eagerly awaiting its arrival. I am sure it will be chock full of those wonderful 19th century post mortem portraits.


In a coming installment, I will post more from my own PM photo collection, so please stay tuned.

Facies Dolorosa

In 1934, the German diagnostician Prof. Dr. Hans Killian published an amazing book of 64 portraits of his dying patients. The first edition of Facies Dolorosa was printed using the collotype process and is extremely rare and expensive. Subsequent editions printed in half-tone are sometimes found, although still rare and valuable.

These portraits were seen as a scientific work of empirical observation; a theory Dr. Killian was propounding whereby the underlying diagnosis of a person's illness could be seen written in the tensions and expressions on their faces. In spite of being clinical in intent and approach, there is nevertheless an amazing terrible beauty in these faces. Shot close up and obliquely, the portraits resonate with an odd tension between the intimate and the dispassionate.

Here are few examples from this amazing book. Two patients are shown pre- and post-mortem.

Funny Tombstones

To end the first year of this blog, I am presenting a series of mainly "borrowed" images of silly tombstones that are supposed to actually exist. Of course, sometimes the humour is based on our language and how we interpret people's names. But many are created by families with a real sense of humour. I wonder if the deceased made it clear in their will that these are the memorials that they wanted over their grave in perpetuity?

Enjoy. Wishing you well for the New Year.....

I don't know him.....