The Body Worlds 3 exhibit is now in its final weeks at the St. Louis Science Center.

Luckily, my family and I got to see the exhibit before the chance passed us by. Ever since The Telegraph first featured Body Worlds in the Accent section when it first came to town, I have been fascinated and dying to see it up close.

I read about the inventor of the process used to preserve the bodies and parts that are on display in Body Worlds and all about the exhibit itself.

In January of 1977, Gunther von Hagens dedicated himself to his invention of plastination, the process of halting body decomposition by impregnating and saturating the cells and tissues with a polymer solution. This allows the bodies and parts to be preserved for educational purposes.

We got to the Science Center and only had to wait about 30 minutes to get into the exhibit. Once inside the Exploradome, it was pretty slow moving because there were so many people there. However, the exhibit wasn’t set up in any sort of order, so once we passed the first couple display cases we could move around however we chose.

According to the Body Worlds web site, the bodies on display are donated and are very real. In person, it’s hard to believe they are real though. They look quite plastic. That doesn’t dull the stunning effect of the display, however. 

Some of the displays seemed a hybrid between a scientific model and an art display. Take, for example, the Skin Man, shown below. The display said that the figure is meant to show how fragile the human body is under the skin. I think it does portray that, but also reminds me of a statue I might see in an art museum, and I can’t help but think there might be a deeper meaning for some who look upon it. 

There was another figure shown climbing out of a grave, which I heard several small children say was quite scary. If I were a small child, I might have thought the same. I heard their mother explain that the display was not scary; it was educational. I think it was a little of both, depending on how you look at it. The eyes on the bodies were the creepiest part. You could even tell pretty well what some of them really looked like when they were alive.  

Other displays showed body parts or slices of the body. A smoker’s lung sitting next to a healthy lung encouraged some people to dump their cigarette packs. (My boyfriend noted that some of the packs looked like they were already empty when dumped.) A badly deformed spine showed the effects of a disease or some heavy lifting. A slice of a thoracic cavity riddled with tumors was pretty fascinating, as was a cross section of a 300-lb. man’s entire body that showed layers of fatty tissue sitting on top of the muscle. (Made me want to go on a diet.)

Many of the displayed bodies seemed to be younger to middle aged people in pretty good physical condition, but judging by the muscles only, it’s obviously hard to tell. 

One section that was closed off from the rest of the exhibit showed human fetuses from something like 6 weeks into a pregnancy to 38 weeks into a pregnancy. I found that part particularly interesting. We figured it was closed off from people who might be offended and who might not want to see it for that reason. I could see why. After all, the babies didn’t get the chance to donate their own bodies. I never realized that as young as 8 weeks, the fetus has already grown into something that actually looks like a human baby. Might give other people like myself some new perspectives, even though the sight of all of it really was quite sad.

All in all, my family (my dad, mom, 21-year-old brother and 25-year-old boyfriend) enjoyed our experience. Though we didn’t have any younger children with us, there were younger children there that seemed fascinated by the same things we were fascinated by.

It was really amazing to see what we are all made of under our skin and what makes us tick. I think it gave me a newfound appreciation for all the working parts in my body and made me realize how important it is to try and maintain healthy habits, now that I’ve seen with my own two eyes what can go wrong if I don’t.

Learn more about Body Worlds and the plastination process at http://www.bodyworlds.com/.
Read the story on Body Worlds 3 in St. Louis on The Telegraph’s Web site.

Tickets are available online or by phone through Ticket Master, (314) 421-4400. You can also buy them at the Science Center. Tickets are dated and timed for entries into the exhibit every 30 minutes.

Single ticket prices are $18 for adults 19 and older, $12 for children ages 4-18 and $15.50 for seniors 62 and up. Members are eligible for a discount, according to the SLSC’s Web site, http://www.slsc.org/. Group rates are also available.

The exhibit is open Monday through Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. (last entry at 5:30 p.m.), Thursady through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. (last entry at 8 p.m.) and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. (last entry at 5:30 p.m.).

Get there while you still can for this rare experience!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 1:42 pm and is filed under St. Louis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.