Gunther von Hagens was known by some sections of the media as ‘Doctor Death’. Photograph: Agencja Fotograficzna Caro/Alamy View image in fullscreen Gunther von Hagens was known by some sections of the media as ‘Doctor Death’. Photograph: Agencja Fotograficzna Caro/Alamy Exhibitions Obituary Gunther von Hagens obituary German anatomist who devised a system of ‘plastination’ to preserve cadavers that were exhibited all over the world
Prefer the Guardian on Google The German anatomist Gunther von Hagens, who has died aged 81 of a cerebral haemorrhage, following nearly two decades of living with Parkinson’s disease, was the creator of the international exhibition Body Worlds, which generated plaudits and revulsion in equal measure whenever and wherever it toured. Frequently accused of showmanship and self-aggrandisement, the theatrical Von Hagens, always seen wearing a black fedora, was known by some sections of the media as “Doctor Death” thanks to his use of a technique called “plastination”, which he had invented to preserve human corpses. Bodily fluids, fats and organs that usually decay after death were replaced with plastics, so tissues remained intact. The corpses could then be put on display, usually with the skin peeled away to reveal skeletons, organs and muscles.
Plastinated corpses remain flexible, meaning they can be manipulated into lifelike poses – a basketball player or a trapeze artist – or sliced into cross sections. But Von Hagens often trod a fine line between scientific exposition and the macabre. Other exhibits included a dead expectant woman with her foetus still in her uterus and a man who had deliberately killed himself by driving into a tree at the place his wife had died previously. Both had donated their bodies for plastination and were exhibited along with the objects that caused their deaths.
Unsurprisingly, Von Hagens and Body Worlds – which first went on display in Japan in 1995 – were considered somewhat contentious. Religious leaders denounced him. Churches in his native Germany held requiems for the corpses. The chief rabbi of Haifa described plastination as a violation of the Jewish principle of kavod adam , or human dignity, while the Catholic archbishop of Miami deemed Von Hagens would, when arriving at the gates of hades, be treated as he had treated his subjects, unaware that the anatomist had already expressed a wish for his own body to be plastinated on death.
He was also disparaged by secular critics who simply found his work repugnant, with the Nobel laureate Günter Grass reported to have compared him to the Nazi eugenicist Josef Mengele. The journalist Jasper Gerard wrote a particularly caustic article in the Sunday Times in 2002, concluding that “the moral problem is not how Von Hagens treats the dead, it’s what [his exhibition] says about his view of the living”.
Others acclaimed Von Hagens as an emancipator and normaliser of the human physique. The Akron Beacon Journal in Ohio said he “illuminated physiology and helped us grasp the anatomical elegance of our species”. One visitor to Body Worlds, who had tried to take her own life, declared that the exhibits convinced her never to consider harming herself again. At the time of Von Hagens’s death, it was estimated more than 20,000 people had pledged to donate their bodies to him – including family members and his employees – while more than 58 million people have visited Body Worlds. The exhibition even featured in the 2006 James Bond film,…