Science, art or oddity?

I can't donate my organs. I'd had hepatitis when I was a kid.

Infra - But, no hepatitis now?

its like looking at a collection of shrunken heaDS. SOME VERY dark humor in there too, like the guy holding up his skin.

I was trying to figure out that guy holding his skin. I think it would have been cooler if his skin was still on his hand, as normal, but had been insided out/peeled off his body up to that one wrist or elbow. Ok, or maybe that would have been grosser.

No hepatitis now, at least not active. That's why I can't donate blood either.

odd. Well, I guess they know what they're doing when the screen blood/organs.

I was once turned down for giving blood for a year because I'd stuck myself with one of my cat's used insulin needles. Boy, did I feel stupid. There was a big consultation with several nurses all piled into a little, window-lined room with me. I haven't been back since.

Howdy, Blaise (aka General Lee) here. To fair, there is a long, long history of dissection and display of the human body and this process follows, and expands on, what went before. Now, having said all that, I'll have to find a a decent link. I really think the "art" aspect of it takes a back seat to the science of it all. In the end, for me, it shows what a miraculous combination of function and form the human body is and, beyond that, the terrible things we do to ourselves from war to crap food.

Here's another link to more pictures from the body worlds exhibit.


http://www.studio-international.co.uk/reports/body_worlds.htm

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/robert.gauthier/dagotyeng.htm

cool links blaise

I was in the UK when this exhibition was touring and remember a poll of people who has visited the exhibition in which they said that they would take more care of their body after seeing the exhibits ( in much the same way that (you'd hope) the Australian anti-smoking adverts which feature , among other things, a dissected brain with a blod clot turn people off smoking.

I have to spend a fair bit of time in a room filled with potted specimens ( body bits in jars ) ( in two weeks we'll be going to watch a dissection), so perhaps it doesn't bother me as much as other folk . After the initial shock, you do become a little bit desensitised and apathetic.


There is a major shortage of cadavers required for teaching purposes, at least in Australia. Many people are understandably squeamish about donating their bodies. While it doesn't seem as immediately important as donating organs, in the long run it is because it affects the quality of the doctors being trained.

NOt trying to convert anybody, just adding my thoughts.

To echo what Eccles mentioned about people vowing to take care of their bodies, my son, upon seeing a smokers lungs next to a nonsmokers, said he would never ever smoke. It was also quite impactful seeing healthy aortas next to diseased ones.

<thanks C'Man>