There are people in life who dream of organizing a real "cabinet of curiosities". They may be interested in non-standard remains - for example, freaks, giants, or dwarfs. Some try to collect, for example, skulls or other body parts of celebrities.
Thus, the German professor of anatomy Gunther von Hagens, who was even nicknamed "Doctor Death", became world famous. For almost 10 years he has been organizing the World of the Body exhibitions all over the world.
They showcase dead human bodies, as well as their individual parts and organs. All remains are mummified using a special technique. The professor called his method plastination. First, all liquid in the body is replaced with substances such as latex, polyester and rubber, and then it is subjected to a treatment, as a result of which the tissues stop decomposing.
You can stir a dead body in any position, it does not emit a smell and, as Hagené himself assures, it can remain intact for 50 thousand years.
The professor made his debut in 2000 with the project "Horse and Rider", where a mummy of a horse and a statue of a man made of plastic were demonstrated. The first "human" exposition was shown in February 2002.
Many scandalous rumors immediately arose around the exhibition. Hagens was accused not only of excessive naturalism and unethicality, but also of voyeurism and the illegal use of the bodies of the dead. Soon after the opening of the exhibition in London, malefactors tried to destroy one of the exhibits.
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The British government issued a statement that court sanctions could be applied to the organizers of the exhibition, since back in the 19th century. a law was passed prohibiting the open display of anatomical objects. But this only fueled interest in the Body Worlds. To date, the number of visitors to Hagens' expositions has exceeded 12 million.
Among the permanent exhibits of the "World of the Body" is a man cut vertically into narrow strips, as well as a rider without skin, holding his own brain in his hands and riding a horse without a skin. The greatest shock is caused by the corpse of a pregnant woman, whose 7-month-old fetus is visible in the cut of the abdomen.
Hagens also has his own Cabinet of Curiosities, where you can admire two-headed babies, Siamese twins and other freaks. In glass showcases, human embryos of different ages flaunt - from several weeks to several months.
As a "raw material" Hagens uses, as a rule, unidentified and unclaimed dead from the morgue. But court scandals have flared up around his name more than once. So, the professors were accused of exporting the corpses of executed criminals from China for him, and in the 1990s. he illegally received about 500 dead bodies from hospitals in Russia and Kyrgyzstan. But it was not possible to prove this, the doctor himself completely denied everything.
Meanwhile, more than eight thousand people around the world have expressed their readiness to bequeath their bodies to the professor for further use. Gunther von Hagens himself and his wife also announced that they plan to turn into exhibits after death.
Hagens believes that his show is primarily educational and artistic value, contributes to the "democratization of anatomy." “The human body is beautiful,” he says.