Body Worlds

What I like about London is that it always has something new to offer or places to explore. Today I have been to the O2 arena to see some real dead bodies. In flesh and bone, literally.

The bodies are preserved through plastination by a doctor called Gunther, who also signed my life certificate which was handed as we walked out (if you survive the exhibition, you are giving a life certificate).

The exhibition has preserved bodies of some mortals who signed some agreements that they want their body to be used for scientific purposes or who knows for what other dark desires (we live in the same world as Fritzl after all; so I am not sick to think about the worst, I am realistic). The exhibition started with some small embrios. Then we moved to the next room and there was a lady with a baby in the womb, with all organs and inside things in view. I saw the fat tissue that composes the breasts. It's all fat (no silicone), I now, but I never saw some really nude breasts. So nude they had the skin off. I could have touched her, but I don't like to touch dead bodies, even if they are plastinated. And we were not supposed to touch them, anyway. I could see the nails, the teeth, the eyes...

I think I went pale but then I got used to it. After the pregnant woman followed a basketball player, a painter (a skinned body with muscles and bones in view, with a brush in one hand). What I could not watch for too long was a skinned man holding his own skin on a hand, like one would hold a coat (picture).

In a different room, when I saw a man riding a horse and holding his brain in one hand I was thinking - Ok with the man, but what did they have against the horse?

In there I had the impression that I could smell formol and dead bodies. I kept asking people - can you smell something? No. It was not smelly, but I could smell something. Death maybe.

Anyway, it was a good anatomy lesson.