Plastinated prosection does L-sit on rings at bodyworks

Started by James Hall, December 23, 2013 · 12 Replies · 3,112 Views

James Hall

This surprised me no end. I saw Gunther Von Hagen's Kürperwelten a.k.a. Bodyworks in Bochum, Germany today. Low and behold one of the whole body plastinates (a prosected cadaver essentially dipped in plastic/resin) was put in an L-sit position on a set of rings. Full PPT, no arched back and legs dead straight (oops). There was also a skeleton effectively in the same position next to it showing said PPT (no legs though)

You can see all the portions of the muscles and everything. Unfortunately due to Anatomy/body donor laws and ethics I have no pictures. I highly recommend you see the exhibition anyway but this made it relevant to us.

Mind you it is intense even after studying anatomy, the last part especially😄

MvdB

Nice! I will be visiting the exhibition in Amsterdam in January, with my osteopathy class. Really looking forward to it!

James Hall

It doesn't hold much educational value for in depth anatomy studying but it is good to teach non anatomists a bit about the body. The skeletal muscle prosections were entirely superficial. I'm of mice opinion but I'm leaning towards the exhibition being more sensationalist then educational. I'd be interested to read what others who have seen it think. For example the different poses of the whole body plastinates really do not show what muscles play a role in that movement which was the justification the exhibition gives.

MvdB

I know what you mean, we're definitely not going for educational purposes, just for fun. Education-wise, we'll be doing actual dissections ourselves in the not-too distant future...

Keilani Gutierrez
Michaël said:

I know what you mean, we're definitely not going for educational purposes, just for fun. Education-wise, we'll be doing actual dissections ourselves in the not-too distant future...

now THAT would be fun. i'd need to screw my head really well to my shoulders to deal with that afterwards.
James Hall

Dissections for osteopathy?? Only the biggest Medical Schools in Australia give dissection opportunities to medical students and it's usually optional or for those who excel.

MvdB

I think it's pretty common here in the Netherlands for students of osteopathy, physical therapy and of course medicine to have some exposure to actual dissection. We'll be doing some of it ourselves and some of it will be demonstrated.

bigB

The cadaver needs to work on turning out the rings in his L-sit support.

synchroGENized

I remember getting/having to dissect a lightly used rabbit in Kinesiology.  There was also the opportunity to see the faculty's cadaver once but undergraduates only looked at it.

 

The rabbit was a great way to visualize the way things connected and lay except for the forearm/calf bits.  Somehow studying the text books I had developed the idea that all my muscles were brightly coloured, clearly labled and meticulously cleaned.  The rabbit had fascia and fat and everything was the same grey muddled mess, it was quite a shock.

MvdB

During my MSc studies (biology) I dissected the following animals (there may have been more but it's been a while): a small shark ( ~1 m long), a lamprey, various bird species, and a piglet. Very enlightening and - dare I say it - fun as well! I'm sure it won't be easy at first to work with a human cadaver, though. 

James Hall

The best I've done is play with prosected cadavers. Everything except do the dissection. There's a body shortage throughout the country. There's a big school of thought too here that dissection is not the best method for learning anatomy until you're extremely advanced. Too much destruction when a professional can dissect everything around the facial nerve and show it in its entirety. There's not many people in the world who have that skill

MvdB

I agree and I'm pretty sure us students will be limited to basic dissection/gross anatomy with the more advanced stuff being demonstrated by a professional.