Body Worlds, the international plastination phenomenon, has proved immensely popular with audiences worldwide. Never before has the human body been exposed to public gaze in such an accessible and intriguing manner. Dissected body parts feature alongside whole-body plastinates with their life-like poses ranging from those with Renaissance motifs to others with highly contemporary themes. However, the exhibitions and their creator, Gunther von Hagens, have astounded many, including anatomists, some of whom find the unconventional display of human bodies unethical and offensive. The voyeuristic nature of Body Worlds and the uneasy balance between entertainment and education have proved problematic for anatomists. Von Hagens himself is a polarizing figure, pursuing his dream of "democratizing anatomy" with little regard for the conventions of academia. While valid ethical objections can be raised against some aspects of the exhibitions, we argue that wholesale rejection of them is unwarranted. In arriving at this conclusion we assess the ethical and educational issues involved. We divide the whole-body plastinates into four categories, ranging from those illustrating structural and functional relationships to those with artistic and humanistic aspirations rather than anatomical ones. We conclude that anatomists need to face up to the opportunities and challenges posed by the Body Worlds phenomenon, utilizing what is being presented to the general public and adapting this in teaching and research.

The use of unclaimed bodies has been one of the distinguishing features of the anatomy profession since the passing of nineteenth century legislation aimed at solving the problem of grave robbing. Only in more recent years has the use of bequeathed bodies supplanted dependence upon unclaimed bodies in many (but not all) countries. We argue that this dependence has opened the profession to a range of questionable ethical practices. Starting with contraventions of the early Anatomy Acts, we trace the manner in which the legitimacy of using unclaimed bodies has exposed vulnerable groups to dissection without their consent. These groups have included the impoverished, the mentally ill, African Americans, slaves, and stigmatized groups during the Nazi era. Unfortunately, ethical constraints have not been imposed on the use of unclaimed bodies. The major public plastination exhibitions of recent years invite us to revisit these issues, even though some like Body Worlds claim to use bequeathed bodies. The widespread use of unclaimed bodies in institutional settings has lent to these public exhibitions a modicum of legitimacy that is needed even when donated bodies are employed. This is because the notion of donation has changed as demonstrated by consideration of the principles of beneficence and non-maleficence. We conclude that anatomists should cease using unclaimed bodies. Difficult as this will be in some cultures, the challenge for anatomists is to establish relationships of trust with their local communities and show how body donation can assist both the community and the profession. Clin. Anat. 25:246-254, 2012. V V C 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Accounts from the humanities which focus on describing the nature of whole body plastinates are examined. We argue that this literature shows that plastinates do not clearly occupy standard cultural binary categories of interior or exterior, real or fake, dead or alive, bodies or persons, self or other and argue that Noël Carroll's structural framework for horrific monsters unites the various accounts of the contradictory or ambiguous nature of plastinates while also showing how plastinates differ from horrific fictional monsters. In doing so, it offers an account of the varied reactions of those responding to exhibitions of plastinated whole bodies.

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