In July 1977, while working as a scientist and research assistant at the University of Heidelberg’s Institute of Pathology and Anatomy, Dr. Gunther von Hagens had an outrageous notion.
“I was looking at a collection of specimens embedded in plastic. It was the most advanced preservation technique then, where the specimens rested deep inside a transparent plastic block. I wondered why the plastic was poured and then cured around the specimens, rather than pushed into the cells, which would stabilize the specimens from within and literally allow you to grasp it.”
The notion was an epiphany for Dr. von Hagens, and the genesis of Plastination—his groundbreaking invention where all bodily fluids and soluble fat from anatomical specimens are extracted to stop decomposition and replaced with reactive resins and elastomers, such as silicon rubber and epoxy that harden with gas, light, or heat curing, giving the specimens rigidity and permanence.
Weeks later, while preparing serial slices of human kidneys for a research project, another thought occurred to him as he embedded the kidney slices in liquid plexiglass and watched the air bubbles that resulted from stirring the hardener that had to be extracted under a vacuum. “It crossed my mind that it would be possible to impregnate an acetone-soaked renal piece with plastic under vacuum conditions simply by extracting the acetone in the form of bubbles, just as is done in degassing.” Though many acetone bubbles were extracted from the specimen, it shrivelled into a black mass within the hour.
But Dr. von Hagens was undeterred by the result of his maiden voyage into the world of Plastination. His basic knowledge of physics and chemistry enabled him to conclude that the black colouration stemmed from the refractive qualities of the plexiglass and that the shrinkage was due to the accelerated speed of the impregnation process.
This realisation prompted him to repeat the experiment a week later using liquid silicone rubber that had more favourable light refractive properties. He administered the impregnation slowly, pouring fresh silicon into three separate baths to avoid premature hardening of the silicon and specimen from exposure to air. After curing the specimen in the open air, von Hagens held in his hands the world’s first plastinate.
In March of 1978, Dr. von Hagens filed a patent for his invention with the German Patent Office. However, he had only scratched the surface of Plastination. The refinement of his invention and the creation of the first whole-body plastinate would take thirteen more years, though he declares even now that his methods are not yet perfect.
During his experiments, Dr. von Hagens sought the counsel of other scientists when he faced obstacles in his experiments. Dr. Wolfgang Koser, a distinguished polymer scientist, then head of the Reaction Resin Application Technology Department at BASF AG in Ludwigshafen, Germany, was Dr. von Hagens’ closest adviser during his initial discovery. “He showed me organs and tissue parts that had been impregnated with synthetic resins but that did not satisfy his expectations and requirements.
Considering the usually poor knowledge in the field of polymer chemistry to be found in physicians, the specimens were surprisingly well done,” writes Dr. Koser. He offered von Hagens technical advice on the proper processing of synthetic resins—how to overcome difficulties related to the hardening of resins in a wet environment and inside the fine blood vessels. Intrigued by the idea of working with ‘an extremely motivated, highly innovative, unconventional and yet very personable scientist,’ Dr. Koser offered to work with von Hagens in his lab on the weekends.
Like all pioneering scientific discoveries, Plastination had its fair share of spectacular failures before yielding success. Klaus Tiedemann, then a professor at the Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Heidelberg, and a colleague of Dr. von Hagens, bore witness to some of them. He remembers a day at the lab when von Hagens tried to operate a vacuum chamber made from stainless steel plates welded together. “A safety glass about an inch thick served as its cover. When the vacuum had reached about one-tenth of normal atmospheric pressure, the plate glass, which had bent considerably by then, burst with the sound of a hand grenade and covered us with glass crumbs,” he writes.
Despite many setbacks, Dr. von Hagens persevered with what had become his professional and personal obsession. In 1981, he filed his patent for “Animal and Vegetal Tissues Permanently Preserved by Synthetic Resin Impregnation,” with the US Patent Office. In quick succession, Dr. von Hagens published several academic papers about his invention and established BIODUR, a business to market the essential auxiliaries and formulas for Plastination to 400 medical schools and universities worldwide. He also founded the Institute for Plastination and eventually created the BODY WORLDS anatomical exhibits that have been seen by more than 54 million people around the world.
His most recent venture has been establishing the largest and most advanced Plastination laboratory in the world.
Which is operated by Gubener Plastinate GmbH and is home to the Plastinarium and von Hagens Plastination, which distributes plastinated specimens to medical schools all over the world. The laboratory and facilities employ more than 100 individuals. His son, Rurik von Hagens is the Managing Director and Dr. Vladimir Chereminskiy is the Director of Anatomy and Plastination.
With Plastination, Dr. von Hagens has irrevocably changed the traditional field of anatomy and its audience. “The purpose of Plastination from its very inception was a scientific one, to educate medical students. But the interest of lay people in the plastinated specimens inspired me to think of public exhibitions, which was followed by the realization that I had to offer a heightened sense of aesthetics to avoid shocking the public and to capture their imagination,” says Dr. von Hagens.
Institute for Plastination
BODY DONATION PROGRAM—
THE ETHICAL SOLUTION
In 1993, a Body Donation Program was established by the Institute for Plastination (IfP), a company founded by Dr. Gunther von Hagens. The program enables an individual to donate their body through willed legal
consent during their lifetime, for the education of future generations. The IfP Body Donation Program is the sole source of the human specimens used by von Hagens Plastination (vHP) in the production of plastinated specimens, and represents the ethical cornerstone of our work.
Donors are provided with comprehensive information relating to how their body will be used.
Currently the program has more than 21,000 registered body donors, around 2,600 of whom are deceased. Donors originate from more than 33 countries, with the majority from Germany (~85%) and the United States (~10%).