TEASING OF SPECIMEN WITHOUT TEARING AND TEARS BY GUNTHER VON HAGEN S PLASTINATION TECHNIQUE

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2 Int. J. Agric.Sc & Vet.Med R Menaka and Mamta Janmeda, 2015 Research Paper ISSN Vol. 3, No. 4, November All Rights Reserved TEASING OF SPECIMEN WITHOUT TEARING AND TEARS BY GUNTHER VON HAGEN S PLASTINATION TECHNIQUE R Menaka 1* and Mamta Janmeda 2 *Corresponding Author: R Menaka, rmenaka2008@gmail.com The plastination is an innovative technology to prepare biological models life like forms. Gunther Von Hagens, a German anatomist from Heidelberg, has developed a preservation technique that he had coined the word "plastination. It includes four main steps like fixation, dehydration, impregnation and curing. The Hagen s plastinate models is an alternative teaching aids and museum models which explores the scientific and cultural value of human cadaver as well as animal cadavers. This technique is a big boon to the professional to educate the gross morphological details from scientific community to common man. These plastinates overcomes the existing wet formalin embalmed cadaveric specimens in the laboratory. Keywords: Plastination, Cadavers, Embalmed, Boon, Curing and innovative technology INTRODUCTION The Anatomy is the backbone of the medical science. It is one of the fundamental subjects in the medical field and domain principles of anatomical knowledge to graduates, practitioners and clinicians. The subject was first recognized as a discipline of science in Alexandria (Singer, 1957). The living body has become a mix of nature and artifice. It is an art to preserve the dead bodies with scientific technologies to give vivid appearance to common people, students and other scientific professionals. Preservation of human body or animals cadaver requires infusing chemicals with tissues. The current scenario of preservation of body is with low temperature vitrification which is achieved by cryonic containers for short duration. The invention of plastination has given medical students and wider audiences an educational tool 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Veterinary Anatomy & Histology, Vanbandhu College of Veterinary Sciences & Animal Husbandry, Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari , Gujarat, India. 2 Assistant Professor, Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding, Vanbandhu College of Veterinary Sciences & Animal Husbandry, Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari , Gujarat, India. 16

3 Int. J. Agric.Sc & Vet.Med R Menaka and Mamta Janmeda, 2015 for the study of anatomy and embryology. Plastinates are used globally in medical, veterinary and dental schools have been viewed by more than 25 million people around the world through body worlds exhibits. Particularly embryo and in-situ position of fetus plastinates give people the opportunity to examine the structures present during prenatal development (Jose, 2001). It enhances the scientific knowledge and value in the cadaveric models, dedication to the public art that is the way to show off the glory of the god s creation instead of left out for decompose and destroy naturally. Prior to this technology, other methods were used in attempts to overcome the decomposition problem with cadavers. In eighteenth and nineteenth centuries body parts were often suspended in embalming fluid and preserved in tanks. In 1930s Chicago Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois, had created a display body cross-sections thirty-nine embryos and fetuses. Similarly, the Frederik Ruysch was displayed fetal collection within the jars. In the early twentieth century, anatomy courses featured plastic models of organs, sometimes combined with real body components. At Germany, the medical students also studied anatomy by using organs preserved within plastic blocks. The organs were chemically preserved and then suspended in liquid plastic. The plastic would harden to form a clear block with a visible organ inside. The anatomical knowledge can be disseminated by various methods like, Cadaveric dissection/prosections Plastinated prosections Multimedia-primal pictures, visual teaching videos Living anatomy Surface anatomy Medical imaging-invivo visualization of anatomy and physiology Plastic models Autopsy/postmortem and Virtual Audio-video computer simulations (Sugand et al., 2010) Von Hagens Plastination Technique In the past twenty years, Gunther Von Hagens, a German anatomist from Heidelberg, has developed a preservation technique that he has dubbed plastination. It involves a sequence of chemical treatments of the corpse, which is then modeled into a sculpture by the anatomist s hand and scalpel. The resulting anatomical object looks like a conflation of an opened-up mummy, a skinned corpse, and an artistic sculpture in the anatomical specimens. Plastination is a technique for preserving tissues, organs, and whole bodies for medical purposes and public display. Gunther von Hagens invented a form of the method in 1977 at Heidelberg University in Heidelberg, Von Hagens body models, called plastinates, have since become widely used educational tools not only for those studying anatomy and medicine, but also for public audiences. By accurately preserving tissues for use in research and education, the technique has contributed to the fields of medicine, anatomy and embryology. Von Hagens technique of plastination originated from his belief that the plastic block preservation method inadequately met the needs of students. The bulky plastic, which could be inches thick, surrounded the specimen and frequently obscured the view and dimensions of 17

4 Int. J. Agric.Sc & Vet.Med R Menaka and Mamta Janmeda, 2015 the structure inside. Instead of placing the tissue in the plastic, von Hagens attempted to put the plastic in the tissue. He was working as a research assistant in the Anatomy Institute of Heidelberg University in the mid 1970s, von Hagens spent almost a decade developing his plastination technique. Plastination presents immense an opportunities and challenges to anatomy. Anatomy Art is one of them. It would be a great pity if anatomists and educators were so wedded to tradition that they failed to appreciate what this new technology is offering in both teaching and research. Although Anatomy Art may not be what everyone would wish, the artistic-scientific embrace it represents presents the human cadaver/animals in an invigorating way (Jones, 2002). Von Hagens plastination technique follows the same basic sequence of steps for everything from organs to full bodies, with slight polymer variations to account for tissue differences. Plastination involves fixation, dehydration, forced impregnation, positioning, and curing of the specimen. The process should begin between two and ten days after the body dies to ensure that the anatomical features, such as the muscle shape of the plastinate, resemble those of a living organism. Bauer (2000) stated that plastinated specimens is not a model but are natural structural models of the original cadavers. Each whole-body plastinated specimen is unique, even though in educational contexts it may be used to throw light on generalized human/veterinary anatomy. Various Steps involved in plastination Methods (Hagens et al., 1987): Fixation: The fixation of the cadaver is the first step in plastination. As with the precursors to plastination, formalin is used to temporarily preserve the tissues. For von Hagens technique, however, the tissue is directly injected with the formalin solution as opposed to being submerged in it. Dehydration: The next step of the process is dehydration. The specimens are placed in an acetone bath where the water and fats dissolve and are replaced by acetone. This step is important because the anatomist cannot swap the body s fluids with the polymers that eventually occupy their spaces in the final plastinate, but the acetone finally replaced with polymers. Impregnation: The specimen is placed in a vacuum chamber and the pressure is dropped to the point where the acetone changes to its gaseous state. As soon as the acetone changes into a gaseous state of matter, the gas is pumped from the chamber and slowly replaced with a selected polymer. The pressure difference causes the liquid polymer to forcibly enter the tissue, and this transfer can take anywhere from days to weeks to complete. These polymers are all reactive, meaning that when treated with heat, gas, or light, they harden. The specific polymer that the anatomist chooses for this step determines the translucency and durability of the resulting plastinate. Most of the polymers are resins that consist of silicone, polyester, or epoxy. Curing: The specimen is treated with the necessary curing agent, such as light, which hardens the polymer. As seventy percent of the specimen is replaced with resin during plastination, it becomes resilient to decomposition once the process is complete. Von Hagens plastination technique has made it possible to 18

5 Int. J. Agric.Sc & Vet.Med R Menaka and Mamta Janmeda, 2015 preserve large specimens, such as giraffes, and small specimens, such as embryos. CONCLUSION Today Gunther von Hagens has four plastination patents in the USA, and other patents in different countries. The specimens are in such high demand that von Hagens founded Biodur Products in 1978, a company that specializes in the distribution of tools and chemicals for plastination to educational facilities and public exhibits. The Heidelberg University Institute for Plastination and Journal of International Society on plastination is created to produce plastinates and further improve the process of plastination. Plastinated specimens have none of the usual hazards and restrictions associated with the study of anatomical specimens. Teaching of anatomy is possible without tearing and tears! under one unique plastination preservation technique in 21 st century. REFERENCES 1. Bauer A W (2000), Plastinated Specimens and their Presentation in Museums A Theoretical and Bioethical Retrospective on a Media Event, in von Hagens G (Ed.), Anatomy Art: Fascination Beneath the Surface, Catalogue on the Exhibition, pp , Institute for Plastination, Heidelberg. 2. Jones D G (2002), Re-inventing Anatomy: The Impact of Plastination on How We See the Human Body, Clinical Anatomy, Vol. 15, pp Singer C (1957), The Great Alexandrians about 300 BC-250 BC, A Short History of Anatomy and Physiology from Greeks to Harvey, the Evolution of Anatomy, pp , Dower Publications, New York. 4. Sugand K, Abrahams P and Khurana A (2010), The Anatomy of Anatomy: A Review for its Modernization, Anat. Sci. Educ., Vol. 3, pp Van Dijck Jose (2001), Body Worlds: The Art of Plastinated Cadavers, Configurations, Vol. 9, pp Von Hagens, Gunther Klaus Tiedemann and Wilhelm Kriz (1987), The Current Potential of Plastination, Anatomy and Embryology, Vol. 175, pp

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