When the Real Bodies exhibit came to Cincinnati a few years ago, I missed it. If it hasn’t come to your area, or you missed it, too, you’ll have a second — and third — chance to see it in Las Vegas.
Oddly, there are two Real Bodies exhibits on display. It took us some work to figure out the difference between the two, but I’m not convinced they’re all that different. We chose the one on display in the lower level of Bally’s Hotel & Casino simply because the description sounded more appealing. They divided their room displays into bodily functions, such as: breathing, hunger, the rhythm of the heart, love, motion, thought, and medicine.
The bodies displayed are real. Some have been posed in odd positions, I think, but it was interesting to view all the muscle tissue in a person, or the blood vessels in a face. As we moved through the rooms I started to wonder how in the world all of those different physiological components fit inside us!
There was a section toward the end that showed the most interesting things to me. It was the medicine section. Here, we could see a diseased lung, and a liver spotted with cancer. I found this insight fascinating! I would have liked to see an entire museum exhibit devoted to just that. It sounds macabre, but there was nothing gross or disgusting about the bodies. Or maybe I’m just not squeamish.
We saw all sorts of body parts on the Las Vegas Strip after that. I’m sure you can imagine.
What part of the human anatomy would you be curious to see?
Browsing The Atlas 
This exhibition has been travelling around for a few years hasn’t it? Fascinating to many I suppose (and educational to youngsters and students of medicine etc) but it would be wasted on me.
There aren’t too many left now but I prefer museums/exhibitions that no one has thought to change for many years – their original typewritten description cards gathering dust alongside them. No call for them these days – people want colour, movement, interactivity.
I go back and forth with how I feel about interactive museum displays. Usually, I’m not a fan. There are times, though, when the interactivity helps you put an exhibit in context. For instance, at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum exhibit of the Terracotta warriors they had pieces of broken warrior statues and you could get an idea of hard it was to put things in ruins back together again. But lifting up flaps or pushing buttons? More boring than dusty cardstock placards.
I’ve passed on the display a couple of times, Juliann, even though it would be interesting. Possibly I am a little more squeamish than you are. 🙂 I prefer my bodies whole and warm. Years ago, more than I wish to count, I worked for the American Lung Association and the organization had lung slices featuring such things as lung cancer which were shared with kids to discourage them from smoking. –Curt
I think we had the same slides at the American Cancer Society, when I worked there! Powerful stuff. Which is why I found it fascinating to actually look at a cancer spots on a human lung. I could never be a doctor, but I always liked biology.
These were thin 8×10 slices encased in plastic that we could hand around for the kids to look at, Juliann. We carried them along with a mannequin that actually smoked and had lungs made of canning jars and angel hair. The angle hair would turn an icky, gooey, black and smelled to high-heaven…. 🙂 –Curt
Our visual props were different than those. Powerful stuff! And hopefully, effective.
Ultimately, I felt the non-smokers rights’ movement was much more powerful.
It sounds interesting in a icky kind of way. I wonder who volunteers to have their skeletons and all their innards preserved in that way. I’d never do it, of course. I just don’t have the stomach for it.
Well, now I feel like little bit of a freak. I would. 😐
I also don’t have the appendix, but I do have the kidneys, the liver and the pancreatic gland, so perhaps I’d do after all. 😀
I have been wanting to see this exhibit but I always seem to miss it. Great read!
Thanks! I hope you do get a chance. A peek inside the human body is always interesting to me.