Gunther von Hagens, the German anatomist who invented plastination and founded the Body Worlds exhibitions, has died. He was 81.
Born in 1945 in Skalmierzyce, now in Poland, as Gunther Gerhard Liebchen, he spent his childhood in East Germany. In 1968 he protested the Soviet-led suppression of the Prague Spring, and in 1969 he reportedly tried to flee to West Germany, was caught and sent to prison. West Germany paid 40,000 German marks in 1970 to secure his release under a program for political prisoners.
He completed his medical education in West Germany and developed his preservation method in 1977 while working at the Pathology and Anatomy Institute of Heidelberg University. The method, called plastination, removes water and soluble fats from a dead body and replaces them with silicone, epoxy resin and similar polymers, leaving tissues dry, odorless and durable, and preserving muscles, nerves, vessels and organs for years.
Body Worlds, which began in Japan in 1995, displayed real human bodies in poses such as running, playing chess and standing on a horse, with some bodies having their skin tissues removed. The exhibitions drew more than 58 million visitors worldwide. Beyond public display, plastination is used in anatomy education at medical schools.
Number of visitors to Body Worlds exhibitions worldwide.
Von Hagens argued that his aim was to teach people their own bodies and to democratize anatomy, not to turn death into a show. But critics said some works crossed the line between scientific education and sensationalism. The pregnant woman's body, fetuses at different developmental stages, and bodies displayed in a sexual intercourse position were central to ethical debates.
Von Hagens said the bodies exhibited came from people who had explicitly donated during their lifetimes, a statement echoed by the Plastination Institute. For years there were allegations that his facilities in China bought bodies of uncertain origin. Von Hagens said that after the allegations he instructed that bodies that might be those of executed people should not be accepted.
In 2002, he performed a public autopsy in London watched by hundreds of people, recorded as the first such event in England in about 170 years. Despite objections from officials and some health organizations, it was broadcast on television and reached a wide audience.
Von Hagens was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2008, and as it progressed his movement and speech became limited. He largely transferred the administrative and financial responsibilities of the exhibitions to his wife Angelina Whalley and his son Rurik, though he remained connected to the institute, the Plastinarium in Guben and Body Worlds shows worldwide.
His family and the Plastination Institute announced that he had asked for his own body to be plastinated after death. They will fulfill that request, though where and in what form it will be displayed has not yet been decided. Plastinarium officials said the request would definitely be fulfilled. He died on 24 July at the age of 81.
