Exhibitions of human bodies: popular and controversial

Abstract

Korperwelten or Body Worlds by Guenther von Hagens’ or exhibition of plastinated human bodies and body parts, which has been touring around the world with constantly updated collection, shocks and fascinates people worldwide. “After my death I would prefer to be like this than to be consumed and metabolized by worms and tiny organisms.” This is how one of the donors of his own body for the controversial exhibition explained his decision to let his dead body plastinated and, thoroughly sectioned, displayed at the exhibition. Some 40 “complete examples” of something which used to be living persons, cut into transparent 3-mm slices or sectioned in layers and posed in an imaginative way, as well as several hundred organs become open to the curiosity of the public in Europe and worldwide [2]. Only in Japan, the exhibition drew the record number of 2.5 million visitors. We must not forget a cadaver represents person that lived and deserves proper dignity and respect [3]. Von Hagens’ exhibition provoked number of stormy debates—moral, theological, legal and esthetical ones. During Berlin exhibition, a radio station established a special desk for visitors who wanted to record their own comments on ethical aspects of the show, which were then directly broadcasted in the programme. Question of morality of such preparation and displaying human bodies divided not only the public, but also theologists and ethicists; namely, there is a hard legal and ethical debate on somebody’s right to display objects that used to be living persons, and who are (according to the author himself) “stopped somewhere between death and Wnal decomposition” in such manner. The conservatives claim about blasphemy, mockery of the divine and the human, whereas the more liberal ones consider his work a “facing with the reality in a radical way and overcoming the death-corps taboo”. The most beloved display amongst visitors is the rider on a powerful horse (of course sectioned in detail, also). The rider holds the horse’s brain in his right hand and his own in the other. I hope you will agree with me that no one of us teaches his students about brain from this perspective and in that manner. Not less attention receives sagittal cross-section of male and female body joined in a sexual relationship. I wonder: who were those people? Were they brother and sister? Did they realise in which way their bodies will be plastinated and displayed? I teach my students to respect the dead body, thus I was deeply confused. I simply felt ashamed for such an attitude towards a dead human being. Would some of us like to have his body presented to the million of viewers in such manner? Few months ago, I visited Thailand and I witnessed medical students praying before dissecting the dead body. It appeared to me so compassionate and human. There is a question of the limits of playing with dead or living human body. Can you imagine a plastic surgeon who wants to reconstruct the auricle in the middle of the forehead? I mean, everything is possible, but it is not ethical. It is very interesting that exhibiting bodies of sometime living persons could be an excellent money-making scheme. Departments all around the world have to formulate oYcial ethical standards on the treatment of human remains [1]. Commercial eVects result from entrance tickets, DVDs and printed publications, as well as diverse souvenirs with motifs from the exhibition. The printed cups with a man holding his own skin, watches with white lungs of a nonsmoker and black smoker lungs, posters and t-shirts are only some pieces sold at the luxury-item prices. D. KrivokuTa (&) · M. EriT Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Novi Sad, Serbia e-mail: drdragan.k@neobee.net