If you bring an open mind and an empty stomach, you will likely leave Body Worlds 2 with a new appreciation for the incredibly complex machine that is your human body and the brain, the “three pound gem” that controls it.
The exhibit invites ? almost requires ? gawking at the hundreds of displays of preserved bodies, internal organs and organ systems on display.
“We want to show the beauty of the body interior. Each single specimen is a real challenge to make it happen,” said conceptual director Dr. Angelina Whalley, co-creator of Body Worlds and Body Worlds 2 with Gunther von Hagens.
Plastination, the preservation of tissue by replacing water with acetone, and then by degrees with plastic polymers, gives each specimen an un-nerving fresh-meat look. The bodies are arranged in athletic poses and exploded views revealing internal organs in relation to each other as well as muscles, skeleton, nervous and other systems.
The real gem of this exhibit, in its second stop after San Jose, is the first successful Plastination of the human brain.
“It was for many years so difficult for us to preserve the brain, because it was so prone to shrinkage during the process,” Whalley said.
Ultimately they found the right type of polymer to not only preserve the three-pound organ from decay but maintain its color, size and shape.
Visitors can see the brain in a whole, natural, healthy presentation, as well as various cross-sections and slices. Specimens show the effects of Alzheimer?s disease as well as brain tumors and stroke.
The ravages of disease and unhealthy habits like smoking is another major focus of Body Worlds 2.
“This exhibition is not about art or science, it?s about instruction,” von Hagens said in a video tour. “When people see how unhealthy habits or lifestyles can affect their own bodies … it will help them gain a renewed appreciation and perhaps sensitivity toward their bodies.”
Specimens show the results of a lifetime of smoking, blackening the human lungs, as well as livers damaged by heavy drinking, whitened with fatty deposits, and the toxic fats that push into the chest cavity and abdomen of obese people.
IF YOU GO:
Body Worlds 2 and the Brain – Our Three Pound Gem
Where: The Maryland Science Center
601 Light St., Baltimore
When: Various times through Sept. 1
