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Thursday, September 3, 2009
A professor of anatomy, Gunther von Hagens was born in 1945 in Poznan - now part of Poland - and he grew up near Leipzig, in the former East Germany.
He says his interest in the body dates back to when he was only six. A haemophiliac, he had cut his head and ended up spending six months in hospital.
But it was seeing his first autopsy when he was 17, which he says absolutely fascinated him, that encouraged him to take up medicine.
He was a 32-year-old "scientific employee" at Heidelberg when, he says, he invented his plastination technique one January evening in 1977, almost by accident.
The process involves replacing the natural body fluids with a solid plastic which both preserves the tissues and gives rigidity, enabling the corpse and organs to be displayed in any conceivable position.
Von Hagens says he started without any artistic pretensions.
The idea of displaying his work beyond the world of medical research took root in the late 1980s when he showed some of his work at an open day at Heidelberg University and later at various conferences.
"The librarian and the cleaning lady . . . and they asked their children and friends to come" 
"I had long arguments. Is it art or not? And I always said, no, no, no - but then I realised the people see the specimens in an emotional way."
"The librarian and the cleaning lady . . . and they asked their children and friends to come"
"I had long arguments. Is it art or not? And I always said, no, no, no - but then I realised the people see the specimens in an emotional way."
"It goes beyond information. I understood step by step that plastination opens the hearts of the people to themselves. They recognise themselves, get a new kind of body pride."
Since 1996, he has established plastination centres within universities at Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, and in the Chinese coastal city of Dalian, where he is currently based.
He plans to be plastinated himself when he dies, along with any member of his family who wants to.
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