Body Worlds
Two days ago, Richel, Krishna, and I went to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry for a "field trip." Okay, so it was the middle of the week in the afternoon, and at that time most people, especially doctors and residents, are working. But hey, can we be faulted if nothing was on the attendings' schedule? So off Krishna and I went, dragging along poor Richel who was feeling sick that day.
That entire museum is pretty cool to start with. Super high ceilings with antique planes hanging in the air. There's even this passenger airliner minus the wings, there, too. They also have this gargantuan steam train.
But I digress. The reason we were there was to see dead people preserved with a technique called plastination. The lines were reminiscent of a summer day at Disneyland for one of the rides; long and winding and with a million people between you and the ticket counter. Where did all these people come from? Weren't they supposed to be working?
Anyway, the exhibit was very interesting. True, it was nothing new to any of us, being that we had all taken gross anatomy class at one time in our lives and have spent more hours dissecting and studying cadaveres than we care to remember.
Seeing the bodies themselves wasn't the amazing thing, though. What was amazing was the perfection of the dissections! These dissections were almost perfect. Better than Ronin and Yokoshi's....well, almost. There was one exhibit where it looks like they accidentally cut the left common peroneal nerve. And that was disappointing. But other than that, the dissections looked perfect! No fatty tissue or fascia was left on any of these cadavers. NONE! There were even some exhibits where it showed only the vasculature and nothing else. It was so perfect, it almost looked fake. Like someone had taken some cotton out and stretched it in to the form of a person and solidified it, or something. It was amazing.
But seeing disection after disection gets kind of boring after a while. Then we went in to the next room where they had these huge exhibits. It was quite creative how the bodies were disected and stretched out to make them appear larger than they really were. They even had one of a pregnant woman and a fetus inside. Again, all perfectly disected and intact. The most amazing exhibit of all was the cavalryman. Yes, they dissected out a whole dude and an entire freakin' horse! That was absolutely incredible to see. Again, not that it was so graphic, but to appreciate how long and how hard someone must have worked on that to make it so clean and perfect.
For anyone who has done dissections in anatomy lab, just to give an example, it took us about 3-4 hours just to dissect out one hand. And that's 3-4 people working together and doing a pretty crappy job of it, too. Imagine how long it must have taken someone to do a perfect job! That's the amazing part of the whole exhibit; not actually seeing the bodies and stuff.
Seeing the exhibit inspired me to go to the Rush gross anatomy lab and start doing dissections with the cadavers in different poses.
Anyway, after we checked out the Body Worlds exhibit, we saw one display/creation/whatever you want to call it that would make any kid flip out. It was a miniature model set of the city of downtown Chicago! Complete with the Sear's Tower and that funky diamond shaped building, and even the Loop! To add to that, they had moving trains running on the Loop that ran off in to the countryside and under a large mountain range to emerge in....the middle of downtown Seattle? Is a trip to Seattle THAT easy?
Shoot, I would have done that ages ago had I known. But the downtown Seattle area with the mountain range in the background was absolutely beautiful. Time well spent there; I'll miss that for sure in Indianna.
That entire museum is pretty cool to start with. Super high ceilings with antique planes hanging in the air. There's even this passenger airliner minus the wings, there, too. They also have this gargantuan steam train.
But I digress. The reason we were there was to see dead people preserved with a technique called plastination. The lines were reminiscent of a summer day at Disneyland for one of the rides; long and winding and with a million people between you and the ticket counter. Where did all these people come from? Weren't they supposed to be working?
Anyway, the exhibit was very interesting. True, it was nothing new to any of us, being that we had all taken gross anatomy class at one time in our lives and have spent more hours dissecting and studying cadaveres than we care to remember.
Seeing the bodies themselves wasn't the amazing thing, though. What was amazing was the perfection of the dissections! These dissections were almost perfect. Better than Ronin and Yokoshi's....well, almost. There was one exhibit where it looks like they accidentally cut the left common peroneal nerve. And that was disappointing. But other than that, the dissections looked perfect! No fatty tissue or fascia was left on any of these cadavers. NONE! There were even some exhibits where it showed only the vasculature and nothing else. It was so perfect, it almost looked fake. Like someone had taken some cotton out and stretched it in to the form of a person and solidified it, or something. It was amazing.
But seeing disection after disection gets kind of boring after a while. Then we went in to the next room where they had these huge exhibits. It was quite creative how the bodies were disected and stretched out to make them appear larger than they really were. They even had one of a pregnant woman and a fetus inside. Again, all perfectly disected and intact. The most amazing exhibit of all was the cavalryman. Yes, they dissected out a whole dude and an entire freakin' horse! That was absolutely incredible to see. Again, not that it was so graphic, but to appreciate how long and how hard someone must have worked on that to make it so clean and perfect.
For anyone who has done dissections in anatomy lab, just to give an example, it took us about 3-4 hours just to dissect out one hand. And that's 3-4 people working together and doing a pretty crappy job of it, too. Imagine how long it must have taken someone to do a perfect job! That's the amazing part of the whole exhibit; not actually seeing the bodies and stuff.
Seeing the exhibit inspired me to go to the Rush gross anatomy lab and start doing dissections with the cadavers in different poses.
Anyway, after we checked out the Body Worlds exhibit, we saw one display/creation/whatever you want to call it that would make any kid flip out. It was a miniature model set of the city of downtown Chicago! Complete with the Sear's Tower and that funky diamond shaped building, and even the Loop! To add to that, they had moving trains running on the Loop that ran off in to the countryside and under a large mountain range to emerge in....the middle of downtown Seattle? Is a trip to Seattle THAT easy?
Shoot, I would have done that ages ago had I known. But the downtown Seattle area with the mountain range in the background was absolutely beautiful. Time well spent there; I'll miss that for sure in Indianna.
posted by V-Hume at 10:02 PM
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