-
- ANN ARBOR, Mich. -
When a person dies in Detroit and no one claims the body, an interesting
thing may happen to it. The cadaver may wind up at the University of Michigan
Medical School's plastination laboratory and turned into an eternity-ready
version of itself.
-
- Plastination is the process of taking organic tissue
-- a rosebud, say, or a human head -- and replacing the water in it with
a liquid silicone polymer. The polymer hardens after the application of
a catalyst, permanently preserving the deceased entity.
-
- Until now, plastination has been carried out on a small
scale on cadaver parts and organs, which are then sold to universities
and medical schools for use in anatomy classes. But last month, for the
first time in North America, an entire human body was plastinated. The
project took place at the plastination laboratory at the University of
Michigan, opened in 1989 and run by Roy Glover, an associate professor
of anatomy.
-
- As teaching aids, plastinated organs offer advantages
over models and organs preserved in formaldehyde, the traditional method.
Formaldehyde is unpleasant and toxic, and organs deteriorate quickly when
taken out of the liquid. Plastinated organs are nontoxic, durable, dry
and odourless. They can be written on, and dissected to highlight specific
structures.
-
- For the communication disorders program at Calvin College
in Grand Rapids, Mich., Glover created a plastinated bisected head and
neck, which affords a cutaway view of the human vocal apparatus. While
there are plastic models of this structure, they often distort sizes and
positions of parts for the sake of clarity.
-
- At the University of Michigan Medical School, plastinated
organs are being used in tandem with "virtual anatomy" computer
programs. "Plastinated parts are useful in anatomy for demonstrating
specifics," said Arlen Severson, head of the department of anatomy
and cell biology at the University of Minnesota Duluth School of Medicine.
"But the plastic makes the body too stiff." This makes it impossible
for students to do dissections.
-
- Recently, Glover showed a visitor the fourth whole human
body his lab plastinated as the process was under way. It was on its back
in a stainless steel tank of acetone, which filled the lab with a powerful
smell of nail-polish remover each time Glover lifted the lid. The acetone
drives water from the body's tissue, readying it for the silicone polymer.
The man in the acetone was in his 60s when he died. He had a moustache
and a tattoo, both of which will survive the plastination process. (Skin
plastinates as well as any organ.)
-
- The bodies look much as they did on the day of death,
with minor cosmetic enhancements. Muscle and skin discolourations may be
touched up with dye, and veins injected with a coloured version of the
polymer. On some bodies, Glover will remove the chest wall and reattach
it with a hinge, so it can swing open to reveal the organs. From the acetone
bath, bodies are transferred to the whole-body plastination chamber, a
cylindrical stainless steel tank filled with liquid polymer. A vacuum attached
to the tank lowers the internal pressure, turning the acetone to a gas
and drawing it from the body. As the acetone is drawn out of the tissue,
the silicone polymer is drawn in to take its place.
-
- When the acetone gas stops bubbling -- usually after
about two weeks -- the body is removed from the chamber. All that remains
is to pose the body, set the polymer with the catalyst and mount the finished
specimen on a display stand. Glover uses a plant mister to apply the catalyst,
which starts a chain reaction that works its way through the entire body,
hardening it to a firm but sliceable consistency.
-
- The bodies being plastinated are unclaimed dead, people
with no known next of kin.
-
- SIGHTINGS HOMEPAGE
- This
Site Served by TheHostPros
|