Body Worlds 3

Eric and I went to The Leonardo on Sunday to see the Body Worlds 3 display. I would say that if you get the chance to see this, do it! It was fantastic to see how the body, muscles, bones, ligaments and everything else under your skin works together. It reminded me a lot of my anatomy class.

Some people find it a bit creepy due to the fact that the bodies are real. But they have gone through a plastination process for preservation purposes. You can look on wikipedia for more on that process. It wasn't creepy. Far from it.
There were four things that REALLY stood out for me in the exhibit:

1. The lungs - one display had non-smoker's lungs next to smoker's lungs and when you walked up, there was no doubt which was which.
We saw the lungs with emphysema and there is no wonder why people suffering from it cannot breathe.

2. The Brain - post stroke. I couldn't find a good picture of this specifically, but it was incredible to see what happens inside the brain after the hemorrhage! And it makes sense why the body suffers and struggles to gain mobility.

3. The Heart - healthy hearts verses a heart a with pace maker or valve replacement or post heart attack heart. It's incredible to think about all that the heart does to keep us moving...how much blood is pumped through the body in a day. Maybe my interest stemmed because my grandma had the pace maker and other heart issues, but I found it very interesting.

4. The fetus display - I opted NOT to put pictures of this in this blog entry. It was fascinating to see the growth represented. From 5 weeks all the way to 32 weeks. I found it oddly sobering to be in this area of the display. All of the other displays were fascinating and I soaked it up, but I struggled a bit through this area. Maybe because Eric and I want a family of our own and it was weird to see this.

As a whole, I think the money is WELL worth the expense to see the human body in this fashion. I loved learning more about the body than I did in anatomy - which is strange.

And I am SO much more motivated to put my own body back in shape - the body works SO HARD when it's healthy and ever so much harder when it's not.

There is a lot of controversy regarding how the bodies were obtained. I researched it and found that all bodies were donated - all had to include a death certificate and signed authorization. Any body that did not have both, was cremated. As a side note, there are 9,000 donors lined up for this display in the future.
All in all, it's worth it. See it if you get the chance!