Plastination

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Preparation in the Estonian Health Care Museum in Tallinn

The Plastination is a preservation method for perishable biologicals, which is primarily in the anatomical dissection is used of bodies and body parts.

Plastination was developed by Gunther von Hagens at the Anatomical Institute of Heidelberg University and was granted a patent in 1978. The method of replacing water from the cells with plastic in a vacuum has been known in histology for many years . Hagens' method made the preservation of very large organic preparations possible.

Plastinates

During plastination, the water present in the cells is replaced by plastic ( polymers , e.g. silicones , epoxy resins , polyester resins ). This creates permanent preparations that come very close to natural conditions. Surfaces and structures are displayed unchanged. The colors are initially lost in the process and must be artificially restored. In comparison with mummified corpses ( mummy ), wax models ( La Specola , Florence, Zoological Museum) or body parts preserved in formaldehyde , the plastinates are odor-free in normal surroundings (light, room temperature and mechanical stress) and can be kept for a long time. They are a contribution to the anatomical training of doctors and laypeople.

In general, two types can be distinguished:

  • Disc plastinates : Longitudinal or cross-sections through an organ or part of the body, which, viewed one after the other, give a spatial idea of ​​the position and change of position of an organ in relation to the neighborhood or specifically illustrate the course of anatomical structures in a single section. The panes are translucent and insensitive to touch.
  • Full plastinates : whole organs or corpses. Pie-like or drawer-like incisions may be made that allow a view of the inside of the organ.

Procedure

Scheme

The procedure basically takes place in four stages:

  1. The first step is fixation in formalin or color-retaining preparations, which stabilize the tissue and thereby minimize shrinkage. In addition, the fixation prevents the tissue from disintegrating if a dissection is required. This is used to expose and thus display certain structures with a scalpel and tweezers. Preparations for (“primary”) disc plastination are now cut on a band saw or with another cutting machine.
  2. During the subsequent freeze exchange and degreasing, the tissue water is removed from the preparation in a −25 ° C cold acetone bath. The water freezes, the acetone first dissolves the water, and then if necessary the fat at room temperature. If necessary, degreasing is even more thorough with dichloromethane , which has a higher vapor pressure than acetone. Water and fat have now been replaced by acetone.
  3. The third step and the real core of plastination is forced impregnation . The preparation is placed under vacuum in a plastic solution. Due to the high vapor pressure, the acetone begins to boil and "pearls" out of the preparation. This creates a volume deficit, so that the same volume of plastic is sucked into the tissue. The specimen is then completely saturated with plastic and may be brought into the anatomically correct position.
  4. The final step is hardening. Depending on the type of plastic, the plastics are now fully polymerized using heat, UV light or gaseous hardeners . With the “secondary disc plastination” as well as with the “Tissue Tracing Technique”, decisive processing steps take place after the hardening is complete. Completely plastinated body parts, thick slices or blocks are cut into thin parallel slices in secondary disc plastination, or in the tissue tracing technique they are specifically ground and cut so that anatomical structures can be traced in disc plastinates.
Disc plastinate embedded in acrylic

The disadvantages of the process are the high costs for the plastics, the equipment to be purchased (explosion-proof freezer, vacuum chamber, vacuum pump) and the high consumption of drainage media.

Similar methods have been used for a long time in archeology , in particular to obtain objects recovered from the water that would be damaged by drying out. A well-known example is the wreck of the Vasa ship in the port of Stockholm . There the process had to be stretched over a very long period in order to protect the surrounding material.

Alternative procedures

Methods that produce similar results have been used in anatomy for decades.

During paraffinization (soaking with paraffin ), the fixed preparations are dehydrated with increasing concentrations of ethanol (" ascending alcohol series ") or by freeze exchange and placed in ether . Then they are placed in a saturated solution of paraffin in a heating cabinet at 55 ° C. The ether evaporates and the paraffin concentration rises to almost 100%. After cooling down, the preparations are ready. The process is inexpensive in terms of material and equipment costs. Disadvantages are the amount of work, the flammability, explosiveness and narcotic effect of the ether, greater shrinkage, darkening of the colors and the insufficient strength of the paraffin.

Another method is the polyethylene glycol method. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is water-soluble, which is why there is no need for an intermediate medium. The preparations to be impregnated are placed in high molecular weight PEG after fixation. The preparation can be used after it has been saturated and then dripped off. This is a simple and cheap procedure, there is no health risk from PEG. However, PEG is hygroscopic , the preparations are never completely dry.

Exhibitions

Traveling exhibitions

Plastination became known outside of the professional world through the traveling exhibition “ Body Worlds ”, in which numerous such anatomical specimens as well as some almost complete body donations are presented to the public. These preparations are always anonymous and some of them are composed of different bodies in order to achieve the best possible presentation.

Another successful plastination exhibition is the exhibition Dirk Piper's Art of Bodies / The World of Bodies , which, in addition to human specimens, mainly deals with animal plastinates. Known animal diseases (e.g. laminitis ) are shown here. The exhibition is integrated: From the crime scene to forensic medicine / forensics and Leonardo Da Vinci - “Anatomical drawings” . The exhibition premiered in June 2009 and was planned as a traveling exhibition until 2015.

Guben location

Gubener Museum and Gunther von Hagens public workshop

In 2006, after some negotiations, a new facility for the production and exhibition of plastinates was opened in Guben ( Brandenburg ): the Plastinarium . In addition to the “Body Worlds” exhibition, there is a workshop in the Plastinarium where you can watch the plastinates being made. There is also an introduction to the history of anatomy. From 2007 slice plastinates were produced in Guben.

Although over one hundred thousand interested people from 45 countries visited the area by 2010 despite the brief closure in December 2008, it did not bring the expected economic success. The concept was changed. The newly created "Anatomical Competence Center" is divided into three areas on 3000 m 2 :

  1. the learning workshop (emerged from the former preparation workshop) for doctors, students, medical companies;
  2. the expanded anatomy exhibition and
  3. Showroom with body worlds exhibition and sales department for human and animal plastinates.

criticism

There have been media reports since 2004 that bodies of Chinese execution victims were used for plastination, for the first time in relation to von Hagens (see here ). The allegation was republished in 2007 on the occasion of an exhibition in Pittsburgh (United States) by another organizer. According to the Dui Hua Foundation human rights organization, between 5,000 and 6,000 people were executed in China in 2007. Around a third of the plastinated bodies that Dalian Medical University Plastination Ltd. (Renamed Dalian Hoffen Bio Technique Co. Ltd in 2005) at a unit price of US $ 200 to US $ 300 were executed by executives. One advantage of the Dalian location in terms of obtaining corpses is that there are three forced labor camps in the city. Since the Chinese government came under media pressure that the bodies of rather young people, prisoners, ethnic and religious minorities were used for plastination, it issued a “moratorium” in 2006 to curb the trade and commercial use of body parts and organs for transplantation . In spite of this, deliveries of imported body parts continued to reach the United States, since they had been declared "plastic models for anatomy lessons" .

See also

literature

  • Franz J. Wetz: dead on horseback. From the triumph of the statue to the ban on plastinate. Arts & Sciences Verlagsgesellschaft, Heidelberg 2003, ISBN 3-937256-00-8 (In this non-fictional and illustrated book, Hagens comments on the motif and intention of his work. Here on the basis of the natural history of the horse and the cultural history of the equestrian statues. In addition, numerous Figures comparing the anatomy of horse and rider).
  • Liselotte Hermes da Fonseca: wax figure - human - plastinate. About the communicability of seeing, naming and knowing. In: German quarterly for literary studies and intellectual history. Vol. 73, Issue 1, 1999, ISSN  0012-0936 , pp. 43-68.
  • Liselotte Hermes da Fonseca, Thomas Kliche (ed.): Seductive corpses - forbidden decay. “Body Worlds” as a key social event (= Perspectives of Political Psychology. Vol. 1). Pabst Science, Lengerich et al. 2006, ISBN 3-89967-169-4 .
  • Liselotte Hermes da Fonseca: La plastination, une technique d'incarnation des espoirs scientifiques. In: Annette Leibing, Virginie Tournay (ed.): Les technologies de l'espoir. La fabrique d'une histoire à accomplir. Presses de l'Université Laval, Québec 2010, ISBN 978-2-7637-8995-8 , pp. 139-162.
  • Liselotte Hermes da Fonseca: I want to finally be satisfied and happy in my bone life. Eschatology of the body worlds. In: Dominik Groß , Brigitte Tag, Christoph Schweikardt (Eds.): Who wants to live forever? Postmodern forms of continuing to work after death (= images of death. Vol. 5). Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-593-39479-4 , pp. 197-218.
  • Body worlds. Insights into the human body. Catalog, ed. State Museum for Technology and Work in Mannheim, 1997.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wolfgang Wegner: Plastination. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1165.
  2. ↑ Harriet Stürmer: Everything new in the Plastinarium , in Märkische Oderzeitung , May 28, 2010, p. 11.
  3. ↑ China 'Bodies' exhibit raises hackles here , accessed on Jan 12, 2012.
  4. ↑ a b c The global corpse trade Fabian Kröger in GID - Der Gen-ethische Informationsdienst (October 5, 2009), accessed on January 12, 2012.
  5. ^ LM Tanassi: Plastination. In: American Journal of Public Health . Volume 97, number 11, November 2007, pp. 1998-2000, doi : 10.2105 / AJPH.2007.120519 , PMID 17901418 , PMC 2040372 (free full text).