In an increasingly health-conscious society, a sparkling exhibition about the body's inner workings that opens today at the Maryland Science Center may be just what the doctor ordered.
Gunther von Hagens' Body Worlds 2: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies presents scores of anatomical specimens in lifelike poses, but shorn of their sheath of skin to reveal the organs, bones, muscles and nerves underneath, down to the smallest detail.
If you go Gunther von Hagens' Body Worlds 2: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies opens today at the Maryland Science Center, 601 Light St. Call 410-685-5225 or go to mdsci.org.
Taking kids to see the show
A show of human bodies preserved in plastic might offer a trove of information about the body's inner workings, but is it wise to take your kids to see it?
"Actually, children have been some of the most enthusiastic visitors to the show," says Angelina Whalley, who co-curated the Body Worlds 2 exhibition with her husband, plastination inventor Gunther von Hagens.
"Kids don't have the same kinds of inhibitions that adults have about looking at things they think are really interesting," she says.
Though the show reveals the body and its structure in intimate detail -- organs, bones, muscles and nerve tissue are exposed in a variety of exploded views -- there's nothing prurient or overtly sexual about the displays.
The fact that the specimens are displayed in lifelike poses without their skins actually serves to clothe them psychologically in an aura of objective, dispassionate inquiry. It also gives them the aesthetic appeal of sculpture.
Not that the bodies don't touch the emotions of either children or their parents.
"We have a huge variety of normal organs and diseased ones side by side," Whalley says. "One of the most touching moments for me was when a young boy who had seen the difference between a normal lung and one blackened from smoking turned to his father and said, "Daddy, I want you to stop smoking because I don't want you to look like that!'
"It was such an innocent, heartfelt response. As a physician, I was very pleased by that."
Glenn McNatt