Bodyworlds

My wife and I went to see the Bodyworlds exhibit at the Ontario Science Centre today.  I had missed a previous exhibit, so I made sure I didn't miss this second chance.  The exhibit was much more comprehensive than I thought it would be.  This specific exhibit focused on the heart, but (I imagine) like the other exhibits it presents all parts of the human body in real life graphic detail.  I found that I had many, many questions about the human body, medicine, disease and the process of plastination.  I kept asking my wife (BSci in micro-biology), but the macro questions were perhaps rather newbie or out of scope for her.  Unfortunately photography was not allowed, but it was actually nice to just take our time (2 hours) and enjoy the exhibit rather than be distracted by trying to photograph it.   The written descriptions were quite technical, but really weren't enough to explain what exactly I was looking at and left me with more questions.  There were audio guides but we didn't purchase them.  After the exhibit we bought the book and the DVD, so I'm hoping those will fill in many of the details and they include lots of beautiful and very educational pictures.


The exhibit gives you a very special opportunity to view the internals of real human bodies and body parts up close.  Based on the quiet reading and intensive viewing of other viewers, I wasn't alone in being awestruck by the exhibit.  I don't think I've ever been to an exhibit where almost everyone was reading almost every description and viewing every piece.  It was marvelous, but rather overwhelming.  It was good to hear many comments from people educated in human anatomy and physiology, but once again, I wanted to stop and ask them lots of questions.  I also wondered how many people were taking notes on what their bodies could look like as smokers, drinkers or fatties.  Along with technical descriptions they were some wonderful quotes from deep thinkers and artists about the human heart and the one that got my attention was about optimism or pessimism.  It went something like pessimism is a bigger cause of death than age or heart disease.  Having trouble finding the exact quote or fact.


The human body is just a massively complex, but perfect machine.  I don't think we do a good job taking care of it in our lives, but amazingly it's pretty resilient.  However, in the end, we just wear it out.  Be good to your body, give it some lovin', be proud of it and respect it.  Santé.