Body World 3: Thoughts
The exhibits were cool. They were tastefully done and almost looked just like plastic models of humans (as opposed to the real thing). The bodies shown in the exhibit were more or less stripped of identity (as in no nametags and little/no skin and therefore facial features) to, as one of the signs read, enable viewers to focus more on the human anatomy and less on the people who've donated their bodies and how they died. Still, knowing that every bone, organ, and blood vessel I was looking at was real gave me that metallic taste in my mouth and I had to visit drinking fountains every now and again to get the taste out of my mouth.
I think the most striking thing was seeing all the different organs that suffer from alcohol abuse or tobacco use. Several of the models had black lung disease. On one, they'd removed tissue so you could actually see his bronchioles... They showed a lung with distended alveoli from Emphysema, which gave me the heebie-jeebies because I've had lung issues since having Pneumonia. The shriveled liver of an alcoholic was in the exhibit too. It was somewhere around half the size of a normal liver and looked like a rasin. The Spleen swollen to twice it's size was rather drastic as well. Eeew. They had a fetus exhibit also as well that showed the size of a human embryo at each week of pregnancy. It was, I admit, fascinating. However, it still creeped me out. The guy holding his own skin was also creepy.
That exhibit was s'posed to be in reference to some Midieval literature stating that the skin was a house for the soul. The man was supposed to represent the man in the literature who was taking his soul to the heavens. They also mentioned that the skin is the largest organ of the body. My skin weighs about 21 lbs. according to another, regular exhibit found in the Science Center.
My mom and sister and husband went to Body Worlds with me. We had a lot of fun. My favorite thing about the exhibit wasn't really a part of the exhibit... it was the old people looking through the exhibit. They made the BEST comments. Such as these:
* We were looking at a glass case containing hip joints and femur bones. One older woman pointed into the glass case, commenting how the femur "looks like a turkey bone".
* The husband was pointing out the artificial joint in the hip too saying "when you break your hip it breaks right there on the stem" (of the femur where it hooks into the hip).
* Some girl made a comment about how they should have trimmed the nails of the bodies. I had to roll my eyes. After you die, your hair and nails don't grow. The skin shrinks and reveals more of what was already there. Which means, they probably DID trim the nails on the bodies, but when the skin was removed, more nail was revealed.
* There was one exhibit where a body had strips of all tissue and flesh alternating with places where it was revealed. An old man asked aloud, "Why did they wrap him in bandages?"... before realizing that was the body's actual skin. Then he commented that "the body's legs are as skinny as [his own]".
I had fun pointing to the exhibits using my shadow and asking questions, since you weren't allowed to touch the glass cases. On the exhibit of the gymnist, my mom pointed out the Achilles Tendon, to which all the muscles in the calf (Gastronemeous) were attached. So it makes sense that Paris' arrow would have killed Achilles. If his arrow severed that tendon, Achilles wouldn't have been able to walk and would have been very easy to be killed.
Overall, the Body World exhibit was very interesting and very educational. The information included in the exhibit is an valuable addition to science and medicine as it enables you to see the human body from a perspective that would be otherwise impossible to see. I highly recommend viewing the exhibit.
I think the most striking thing was seeing all the different organs that suffer from alcohol abuse or tobacco use. Several of the models had black lung disease. On one, they'd removed tissue so you could actually see his bronchioles... They showed a lung with distended alveoli from Emphysema, which gave me the heebie-jeebies because I've had lung issues since having Pneumonia. The shriveled liver of an alcoholic was in the exhibit too. It was somewhere around half the size of a normal liver and looked like a rasin. The Spleen swollen to twice it's size was rather drastic as well. Eeew. They had a fetus exhibit also as well that showed the size of a human embryo at each week of pregnancy. It was, I admit, fascinating. However, it still creeped me out. The guy holding his own skin was also creepy.
That exhibit was s'posed to be in reference to some Midieval literature stating that the skin was a house for the soul. The man was supposed to represent the man in the literature who was taking his soul to the heavens. They also mentioned that the skin is the largest organ of the body. My skin weighs about 21 lbs. according to another, regular exhibit found in the Science Center.
My mom and sister and husband went to Body Worlds with me. We had a lot of fun. My favorite thing about the exhibit wasn't really a part of the exhibit... it was the old people looking through the exhibit. They made the BEST comments. Such as these:
* We were looking at a glass case containing hip joints and femur bones. One older woman pointed into the glass case, commenting how the femur "looks like a turkey bone".
* The husband was pointing out the artificial joint in the hip too saying "when you break your hip it breaks right there on the stem" (of the femur where it hooks into the hip).
* Some girl made a comment about how they should have trimmed the nails of the bodies. I had to roll my eyes. After you die, your hair and nails don't grow. The skin shrinks and reveals more of what was already there. Which means, they probably DID trim the nails on the bodies, but when the skin was removed, more nail was revealed.
* There was one exhibit where a body had strips of all tissue and flesh alternating with places where it was revealed. An old man asked aloud, "Why did they wrap him in bandages?"... before realizing that was the body's actual skin. Then he commented that "the body's legs are as skinny as [his own]".
I had fun pointing to the exhibits using my shadow and asking questions, since you weren't allowed to touch the glass cases. On the exhibit of the gymnist, my mom pointed out the Achilles Tendon, to which all the muscles in the calf (Gastronemeous) were attached. So it makes sense that Paris' arrow would have killed Achilles. If his arrow severed that tendon, Achilles wouldn't have been able to walk and would have been very easy to be killed.
Overall, the Body World exhibit was very interesting and very educational. The information included in the exhibit is an valuable addition to science and medicine as it enables you to see the human body from a perspective that would be otherwise impossible to see. I highly recommend viewing the exhibit.