| OCR Text |
Show I ll laminated number from a head-shaking attendant. I entered the exhibit, shivering and wet. The basic tour was this: 13 rooms, 21 whole bodies, and more than 260 organs and partial body parts lying beneath glass, preserved and accented through a process called polymer preservation, which replaces body fluids with liquid plastic, leaving the tissue intact after the plastic hardens. They were unclaimed Chinese bodies, the tour admitted, "obtained through ethical means." A number of those unclaimed Chinese bodies were positioned in poses like throwing a football, or holding hands. The tour started with the skeletal system, mock-up versions of which most people are accustomed to seeing. Every bone in the body was on display in that room, and groups of people gathered around the ones that they most favored. For me it was the complete spinal display, which stretched as foreign and familiar as a map of a place you've only seen up-close. In the Muscular display were the two bodies holding hands, the prose on the wall talking about the way our muscles work in unison with each other. In the Respiratory room, there was a large plastic canister encouraging you to leave your cigarettes. It was half full. A body was split in half in Digestion to show how the organs tied and fit together. The reproductive section featured both male and female anatomy, one of the few places in which that happened. The female bodies were emphasized mainly for breast and reproductive capabilities. The circulatory system was particularly beautiful, darkness illuminated with the reds and blues of the vessels and arties. Most striking of all, Bodies had |
