A Peeling

A few years ago I went to the see an exhibition in the East End of dissected and “plasticized” human bodies.

I left with a new respect for mine. There were lots of different types of exhibit, one of the most beautiful was that of a child whose blood had been replaced by resin and then everything other than his blood vessel network had been removed leaving an intricate sculpture. Whilst I rated it highly and found it to be very informative there was undoubtedly an air of the performance about the display.


Flay Boy

That turns out to be nothing compared to the first of four programmes called Anatomy for Beginners and featuring the slightly bonkers Dr Gunter von Hagens (responsible for the previously mentioned exhibition) dissecting human bodies, which was shown last night on Channel 4. Almost as revealing as the exhibition it was nevertheless a little bit like watching a spoilt child blowing a wad of his dad’s cash on rubbish with no one able to take him to one side and have a word with him. The good doctor got a clap for goodness sake, for managing to remove the donor’s spinal chord and the associated nerves leading down one leg to his foot, in one piece (and without taking his hat off).

But I’ll be watching again tonight as the oddest thing of all is the taboo around dead bodies which means that I know as little as I do about how mine fits together.