Preserved in Plastic
By Simon Davies
Is there life after death? For over 7,000 people the answer to this question is: “No, but there is plastic”. To date, 460 folks have already been immortalised in plastic, and more and more are queueing up to join them.Not long ago, the rich and famous were signing up to have their bodies cryogenically frozen, in the hope that science would one day have advanced enough to be able to revive them. Now the fashion is less hopeful, but more glamorous. A technique called “plastination” is all the rage and people from 24 countries have signed up to be preserved.
Some speak of scientific progress as their inspiration. They want to be preserved in a dissected, open-body state so that medical students can study their organs. Others want to be plastinated intact and in dramatic action poses; a runner in full stride or a basketball player driving to the hoop. A number of these have been added to the travelling exhibition ‘Body Worlds’.
How far will this go? Should we expect to see Madam Tussaud’s style museums popping up in seaside towns to house the plastinated bodies of local dignitaries? Will long-retired sportsmen be rejuvenated by plastinators in poses they’ve been unable to achieve in years? The mind boggles at the thought of aged plastic bodies in skimpy sports gear; the beer-bellied ex-footballer, the retired boxer with sagging muscles, maybe one day Anna Kournikova preserved complete with varicose veins.
Perhaps you could have a grandparent or two plastinated in sitting positions in the corner of your lounge. Their continuing presence a source of comfort to the family left behind. The only drawback is the price: a whopping $40,000 to $60,000 to preserve an entire body. Perhaps just granny’s head then.
The technique takes the recently deceased body and replaces all the body fluids with liquid plastic, which is then allowed to harden. In this way the body can be preserved in its natural appearance without the need for any kind of special preservative. Developed by Gunther von Hagens in the late seventies, the method is of particular use to medical researchers, for example in studying organs damaged by rare disease.
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