The 73-year-old German anatomist Gunther von Hagens fully fits the type of mad scientist-genius. In the 90s, he developed a unique method of processing and preserving human bodies, which he called plastination.
Since then, he has regularly organized his exhibitions around the world with eerie exhibits - plastinated human bodies or parts of human bodies.
These bodies are often presented with skin flayed or cut into pieces, and they are given postures like in living people.
Because of his exhibition, von Hagens is often at the center of scandals because of his inhumanity or the fact that illegal corpses allegedly get to him. He also often receives ominous nicknames from journalists, the most popular of which is "Doctor Death".
The other day, Gunther von Hagens was again heard after his wife said that he was sick with Parkinson's syndrome, and after his death wants to become one of the exhibits of his museum. According to her, she was shocked by his choice, and this woman is clearly not easy to scare.
Von Hagens' wife is Angelina Wally, also an anatomist in Germany. At the same time, her husband wants her to personally plastinate his body.
Von Hagens is confident that he has very little left and wants his body after plastination to be placed among the exhibits of the large permanent exhibition "Body Worlds" that opens in London this week. Spread across a huge 2,600 square meter area in the former music hall in Piccadilly, this exhibition will showcase a variety of human bones, skulls, body parts and bodies themselves.
However, later Angelina realized that she would still fulfill the wish of her husband, since this would be the “finishing work of his life” and that by this he showed that he loved her and trusted her like no one else.
Plastination of the body is a rather slow and painstaking process, and its main part consists in impregnating the body with a special composition. On average, this takes about a year.
One of the most popular exhibits of von Hagens' exhibition is a rider with skinned and exposed muscles on the same horse in a fast race. Some bodies have their stomachs or chest open to show the structure of the viscera, while others show the structure of the brain in stages.
