By Lourdes Fernandez   

 Inside the former Newseum building in Rosslyn, Virginia awaits the closest thing to experiencing a Magic School Bus field trip into the human body, “Bodies: The Exhibition.” Instead of sliding down the complex web of blood capillaries alongside white blood cells or through the digestive tract’s small intestine in a yellow bus, people of all ages and backgrounds are paying entrance fees up to $32.50 to look at real, preserved human bodies up close.

      Premier Exhibitions, an Atlanta-based company, created “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition” and more recently “Bodies.” The company uses both dissected human specimens and full body human specimens to give the visitor an in-depth and varied perspective of human anatomy and function. The specimens are first preserved according to standard mortuary science, dissected, immersed in acetone to eliminate body water, and then placed in silicone. The polymer enters all body cells and tissues, both hardening and ensuring that the specimen will not decay.

      Frozen in time and plastic, the bodies exhibit is making its way through major U.S. cities. Attracting more than 2 million visitors in cities like New York and Miami alone, Premier Exhibitions will more than recover the $25 million expense of leasing the bodies. The exhibit currently resides in Durham, Seattle, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, and Washington D.C., and will soon open in Pittsburgh and San Diego.

      Despite the high volume of visitors, Premier Exhibitions’ creation manages to extend a level of individual intimacy. As the museum-goer meanders through the exhibit, there is a ubiquitous sense of awe that unites strangers through the strong common bond staring back at them: their own human anatomy. Passing a diseased organ and its healthy counterpart, a teenage girl whispers to her mother, “Is that what grandma had?” The rooms are hushed as groups huddle around the thick glass cases to get as close as possible to the isolated vein structure of a human leg, dyed red for visibility, or the lung’s alveoli.

      The displays, however, are not all encased in glass with white information cards printed out next to them. Some of the most fascinating specimens are full bodies, positioned as if kicking a ball or just standing upright in the free air. Around these human monuments, visitors inch their curious faces closer and closer—crouching down, craning their necks, and circling around. Besides the constant “That’s amazing”s and “Wow”s, the occasional medical professional or former biology student explains to their companion the source of a disease’s onset or the functional intricacies of the organ on display.

      For those without a medical source of knowledge, hired locals specializing in human anatomy are scattered throughout the exhibit in white lab coats with “Ask Me” buttons pinned to their lapels. One such knowledgeable staffer gushed, wide-eyed, to a visitor: “Human muscle most resembles pork. Isn’t that funny? And the accounts of cannibals tell us that we are most similar to pork in taste as well!” Every now and then, groups gather to hear more details about the preservation process or to hold the preserved brain or heart available in the lower level.

      The exhibition’s stated objective to have “educational relevance for all ages” is met by audio tours tailored to both children and adults. Detailed information plates that some may have to read three times or more are balanced by interspersed signs of user-friendly knowledge like “Studies have shown that eating breakfast can improve your memory. Mom was right all along.” The human specimens, however, affect everyone.

      Some, like certified athletic trainer Michael Kotelnicki, view the exhibit as a powerful learning experience for a general audience, saying, “I’m coming from a medical background, but it was fascinating to actually see what happens when diseases hit your organs.” Human activists have a different perspective, suspecting unethical treatment and acquisition of the bodies and boycotting the show.

      Premier Exhibitions states that the Chinese cadavers are unclaimed bodies acquired through Dalian Medical University in Dalian, China. The bodies are brought to medical universities such as Dalian by Chinese police officers for research purposes. Dr. Sui Hongjin is Premier’s sole body supplier, managing negotiations with the medical university. From there, however, Premier’s claims are hard to trace due to a lack of proper records. Dalian Medical officials deny any recollection of Premier’s acquisition of bodies from their facilities and the existence of records to prove the transaction.

      The growing Chinese plastination industry, or the business of replacing body water with polymers, includes little involvement from the Chinese government. Although a July 2006 regulation outlawed the purchase or sale of human bodies with the exception of research, Premier Exhibitions claims legal acquisition of the bodies. Owing to poor documentation and China’s history of illegal organ commerce, human rights activists are suspicious of the large scale money-grossing exhibitions.

      A senior research scholar at Georgetown University’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics in Washington, DC, a bioethics think tank, Maggie Little shared her thoughts on the ethical questions introduced by “Bodies.” Having served in the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the NIH and at Johns Hopkins University before arriving at Georgetown, Little expresses her concerns, “I do think it’s complicated. It’s sort of hard to balance the good that comes from something like this and the ethics of unclaimed body parts. What you want is escalating conditions of consent. If the purpose is for medical students to learn from it, that’s different from a museum exhibit. It has to do with increasing the level of publicity. Just imagine if your grandmother died, and she said she was committed to the enterprise of scientific research. Donating her eye balls for research is different than displaying her face or genitalia in Madison Square Garden.”

      Among Washington, D.C. citizens who have seen the exhibit, the ethical controversy doesn’t seem to hold much weight. Mr. Franco, a local high school teacher, said about the potential of Premier’s unethical acquisition of the bodies: “I would be surprised if that was the case. That sounds like a conspiracy theory. If it were true, then there’s the issue that they’re already dead, so is it a waste? I don’t know.” While the exhibit is designed respectfully, there is a fundamental question of consent. Is a third party’s consent, such as that of Dalian Medical University, enough to allow the complete exposure of an individual’s internal anatomy? The controversy becomes more sensitive when there are no records and the source of cadavers is a nation replete with human rights’ violations.

      Premier Exhibitions’ body show isn’t the only one of its kind either. The plastination and exhibition of cadavers began with Gunther von Hagens’ first show “Body Worlds” in 1996, and today there are multiple spin-off companies.

      Internationally recognized artist and Georgetown University art professor B.G. Muhn, a native of South Korea, saw a similar show years ago in Korea. Analyzing the exhibition’s different aspects, Muhn says, “First of all, it’s wonderful in terms of its educational perspective and also the technical aspects of putting it together. It’s absolutely fantastic. And some aspects, the deeper details of the human body’s structure are shown in isolation. From a young kid to someone in medical school or a medical doctor, it’s just an amazing source to understand the structure of the human body. In a way it’s gruesome, in a way amazing. The other aspect—the ethical aspect is kind of tough. We are shown everything: from the skin to everything. It’s really questionable.”

      Another museum visitor Lauren Walsh, an energetic pre-K teacher finishing graduate school, said the exhibit’s questionable ethics wouldn’t deter her from seeing it, although she said she would study the bodies with more respect. Her determination to attend owes to her experience of biology textbooks and the difference seeing the real thing makes. “I think the exhibit should be required for students. I definitely think so,” Walsh enthuses.

      Premier Exhibitions seems to hold a similar opinion according to the inspirational words emblazoned in white block letters as the visitor exits the exhibit, “To see is to know.”