Unlike any other museum displays you have been to, The Bodies Revealed exhibit is both “fascinating and real.”
“Seeing promotes understanding, and understanding promotes the most practical kind of body education possible. The body doesn’t lie,” said Dr. Roy Glover. Dr. Glover, who taught anatomy for 30 years at the University of Michigan, is the chief medical director for the exhibit. In 2004 he retired from the U of M to become both the spokesperson and the chief medical director for the Bodies Revealed.
So what is so different about this exhibit? The exhibit uses not plastic replicas, but real, preserved bodies. The bodies were provided by accredited medical universities in the People’s Republic of China and expertly prepared for educational purposes.
The exhibit displays real people who have died of natural causes, preserved and modified for public viewing. The bodies have had their skin removed to show different muscles, bones and layers of the body. In addition specific organs have been taken out and displayed alone.
The exhibit uses real bodies because it is able to show variation that constructed models cannot. This benefits students of anatomy and other interested parties.
Preserved with polymer, these bodies travel around the country educating men and women of all ages.
The exhibit made its way to the Imagination Station in Toledo, Ohio in May 2011and will be there until December 4, 2011.
As you walk through the exhibit, you visit the muscular, respiratory, nervous, circulatory and digestive systems displayed in various poses. There are 10 full body specimens and most of them are posed in an athletic stance. Community High School senior Nick Sorscher recently visited the exhibit. “Some of the bodies made me feel slightly uncomfortable but I felt the knowledge flowing into my brain,” he said.
There are over 150 partial specimens included in the exhibit. Many of them are painted to highlight the different parts of the complex maze that we call the human body. The process the exhibit uses to highlight body parts is called corrosion casting. The blood vessels are injected with a colored polymer, which then hardens. The body tissues are then removed using chemical methods, revealing the matrix that carries our blood.
A small organ can take one week to prepare while a full body can take up to one year to prepare.
The organizer, Premier Exhibitions Inc. has struck gold with Bodies Revealed as it has been highlighted on the Oprah Winfrey Show, The Martha Stewart Show, The Today Show and other well know programs.
Dr. Glover’s vision of understanding by seeing is coming true. The exhibit is educating the public.
