Dr. Günther Von Hagens - Anatomy and Physiology, and Being Sick

May 25th, 2008 in My Life

Dr. Günther Von Hagens - Anatomy and Physiology, and Being Sick

Posted by Ina Woolcott

Im sure a fair few of you have seen the live dissections done on corpses by Dr. Günther Von Hagens on TV, and perhaps a few of you have even seen them live. A brief rundown, if unfamiliar with him, Dr Von Hagens was born in Poland in 1945 and when 5 days old his parents left for Eastern Germany where he grew up. He is a controversial anatomist who invented the technique for preserving biological tissue specimens called plastination. He is heavily involved in its promotion and developed the Body Worlds exhibition of human bodies and body parts.

Von Hagens wears his trademark black fedora, even while performing public dissections. Well, if you are familiar with this amazing guy, you may think the title of my posting implies that I was sick whilst watching one of these dissections… not at all… in fact, although at first I felt a bit squeamish when he ‘skinned’ a corpse, I eventually became so fascinated that I wanted to keep watching!

It is the first time I have seen Dr. Von Hagens, at college, where I am learning Swedish Body Massage and as we are currently studying anatomy and physiology, my tutor found it fitting (and it was most definitely!) for us to watch this particular episode. Also, because it was the last lesson before we break up for half term, it was meant to be an ‘easy lesson’. Not for some, 3 people had to leave the room! I will now always remember where the ulna and radius are located! An excellent way to remember where all the bones, tendons, ligaments, organs, tissues etc are. Text books can only teach so much, but seeing a real life (although dead) but dissected is priceless learning.

Although he is met with controversy, I personally feel that he is one of a kind. Everyone is entitled to how they feel, but if you eat meat I bet you never spare a thought or care how the animals are cut up.

After viewing the DVD - unfortunately we didn’t have time to watch all of it - I had to rush back home as the one who is actually ill is my daughter, who is 3years in September. I rather reluctantly left her with my mum, as she has been up since 530am today being sick and I like to be ‘on call’ on the rare occasion when she is actually poorly. However, in spite of being sick she has still maintained her happy personality and as the frequency of being sick got less, I felt OK to leave her for an hour and a half just to go in to college and do some theory. If I wasn’t going to be missing 2 or 3 weeks of college due to going on holiday, I would not have gone in. Also, my daughter slept from practically the moment I left until I got back. Those of you who know me, know that I would never give my daughter suppressive conventional medication to make her ‘better’, which in the long run

= damage to natural stomach flora
= digestive system
= and also overall physical and even mental health

Of course, my daughter has been treated homoeopathically with
Arsen Alb , a lot of TLC and a couple of breastfeeds, although she did chuck up a short while after…she is now asleep on the sofa.

If you like more info of the video I saw today, Anatomy and Physiology for Beginners, Episode 1, Movement - watch the video below