Gunther von Hagens, the creator of Body Worlds and plastination, has died at the age of 81 | Science

Gunther von Hagens, who pioneered the permanent preservation of human bodies in solid state and traveled the world with his Body Worlds exhibition, has come close to fulfilling his long-held wish to be dissected and displayed in a museum after his death at the age of 81.

“It is with great sadness that the family and the Institute for Plastination announce the death of Dr Gunther von Hagens, the inventor of plastination and creator of the Body Worlds exhibition,” the German anatomist association said on Monday.

Von Hagens, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2008, died in a hospital in Heidelberg on 24 July, a day after suffering a brain haemorrhage.

He often said that he wanted his body to be preserved after his death, although he was shaken by his method of presentation.

“I can imagine my plastic body standing at the entrance of the exhibitionor divided into different sectors,” he wrote in the Guardian in 2018.

On Monday, a spokesman for the Plastinarium – the museum von Hagens founded in Guben, Germanyin 2006 – he said that the anatomist’s body “will be made of plastic, because this has been his long-term desire”, although it has not been confirmed.

Von Hagens was born Gunther Gerhard Liebchen in January 1945 in Skalmierzyce, Poland, then under German rule and called Alt-Skalden. He grew up in socialist East Germany and participated in the anti-Soviet protests of the Prague Spring in 1968. The following year, he was imprisoned after trying to escape to the West.

In 1970, West Germany paid 40,000 deutschmarks for his release as a political prisoner. In the West, he met and married his first wife, Cornelia von Hagens, based on her name and its noble connotations.

Von Hagens developed his method of preservation in 1977, while working as a research scientist at the University of Heidelberg’s Institute of pathology and anatomy. “Looking at the specimens in plastic – the most protective method available at the time – I wondered why plastic was poured around the bodies instead of them,” wrote the Guardian.

Plastination involves removing body fluids and dissolved fats from a dead body and applying resins, silicone coatings and epoxies. This method makes the muscles more rigid, which helps the bodies to be displayed straight, as if alive.

Since 1995, von Hagens’ plastic bodies have been exhibited in traveling exhibitions. Some were cut to reveal internal organs, while others were seen playing chess, exercising or having sex. Called Body Worlds, the exhibition became a global phenomenon, attracting more than 50 million visitors worldwide.

Von Hagens co-directed the exhibition with his second wife, Angelina Whalley, and said they were driven by a desire to “democratise anatomy” and break stereotypes about death.

But many critics felt that the show deliberately tried to entertain the audience with shows such as a series of samples of the fetus at different stages of the breast.

The expert insisted that the bodies on display were those of people who had consented to the use of their bodies after death for educational purposes, although the use of the bodies of infants and animals raised difficult ethical questions.

Von Hagens’s fedora-and-leather-vest-wearing public – “a cross between the evil scientist and the radio team of a serial killer”. according to one comment – may not have helped clear up questions about his motives.

After Parkinson’s disease left him unable to drive and speech limited, von Hagens transferred organizational and financial responsibility to his wife and son, Rurik.

“Sometimes, at this time of my life and illness, I wish I could give up my beliefs and accept the idea of ​​god and life after death,” he wrote in 2018. “But I don’t think there is continuity after death. Every dead body I have seen has shown me that there is no soul.