Anatomy for beginners

[Lory]

Did anyone else watch this fascinating channel 4 programme?

It's been on for the last few nights.

Dr Von Hagans performed live autopsies and talked the audience through a number of topics, tonight's was the reproductive system, last night was the digestive system!

It was absolutely riveting but NOT for the squeamish!

I'd seen some of his work before, when I took my children to his Exhibition called 'Bodyworks' when it was in London. My children were extremely apprehensive at first but both were glad they'd seen it!

He embalms 'donated' bodies and dissects them in different ways, showing things like, 'the effects of smoking on the lungs! (I don't think my kids will ever smoke! )

If your interested, the last in the series is to be shown on Sunday night

Channel 4
9:00 pm Sunday Jan 30th


Highlights from last week's series, in which Dr Gunther von Hagens and Prof John Lee performed dissections on real bodies to reveal the intricate mechanics and science of the human anatomy. The doctors also use model skeletons, plastinates and illustrations to show how people's everyday actions can involve the most complicated processes

And here, if you like, you can donate your own body

[Minnie M]

Absolutely AMAZING.........

I saw the last one and was completely fasinated and actually did learn lots - and tonights episode was just as interesting - personally I didn't find it squeamish - wish I had seen all the previous ones now

[Doc Iain]

I agree, have seen one and a half of them so far and felt that they were great. Actually a lot more informative than his Bodyworks exhibition which I felt fell somewhere in the middle of being art and a teaching aid... but this is great! And, you get to miss out on the smell of the formaldahyde that usually comes with dissection rooms!
Good mix of presenters too... a mad professor type keen one and a more teacher like one who actually tells you the important stuff!... Well done C4

[Minnie M]

.......... you get to miss out on the smell of the formaldahyde that usually comes with dissection rooms!
Good mix of presenters too... a mad professor type keen one and a more teacher like one who actually tells you the important stuff!... Well done C4

[CJ]

Are they doing one to show us where the clitoris is?!?

CJ, the VERY bad map reader...

[Doc Iain]

Are they doing one to show us where the clitoris is?!?

CJ, the VERY bad map reader...

Hmm...I think they are, saw some advert for it the other day..... did not take much notice

[Northants Girly]

I think this series has been very informative. The presenters are very professional and work well together. However, I'm not entirely convinced whether Channel 4 are broadcasting this purely as an educational programme.

What I really don't like about it is how the reactions of the studio audience are shown on camera. By doing this the programme makers are saying "this is how people react when they see the insides of a real human body - isn't it entertaining to watch!" Well, yes it IS how most people react but NO it is not entertaining and not what most people have switched on to see.

There are real people being dissected here and I think it is slightly disrespectful to use them as entertainment value which I feel is what is happening to some extent here.

[MartinHarper]

Perhaps Ceroc should sublicense the part that shows where the hip is?

[Lory]

Are they doing one to show us where the clitoris is?!?

CJ, if you'd watched last night, they showed us exactly where it was, on the cadaver (corpse) and I was suprised to learn, its actually attached to the pubic bone!

They also showed us in every detail the male reproductive system too. According to one of the Doctors, no matter how many times one makes an incision in a testicle, it never fails to make men wince! (I didn't feel a thing )

I agree with the fact, by showing the audience reaction, it made it a bit like a game show but I still think it was brilliant.

[Doc Iain]

What I really don't like about it is how the reactions of the studio audience are shown on camera. By doing this the programme makers are saying "this is how people react when they see the insides of a real human body - isn't it entertaining to watch!" Well, yes it IS how most people react but NO it is not entertaining and not what most people have switched on to see.

I agree with what you are saying... I have to add though, that from my experience, which I admit is a bit different (ie. actually doing the dissection) but people do not really react in the way that people in the series are doing. I think that there is an inital shock...no wrong word... uncertainty for some people (NOT all) but that this very quickly wears off and it becomes an educational exercise. Certainly when this is done in medical school you are there for a reason and there is an implication by that that you are trying to learn something from the exercise and so being shocked etc. is a little counter productive. In addition to this there is a certain awe which very quickly makes itself known to you (about 5 mins in when the initial uncertainty has gone). The fact that all our bodies started from 2 tiny individual cells that fused and underwent mitosis a few million times to form a walking talking living human being is, I think you will all agree, fairly astounding. To study this and track the development of organs and body structures is to understand why they are in the positions that they are in, and how they got to be there and what function they have when they are in situ. As such anatomy and embriology is one of the corner stones of medicine, modern and ancient, and I think that it is a real shame that over the last 100 or so years this has really been taken away from the public as society now deems it a bit of taboo. When people like Prof Von Hagen re-introduce this it provokes a shocked reaction among large areas of modern society (hence having to be shown at 11.30 at night). Rather than the fasination that it used to instill (btw I am NOT advocating travelling road shows such as in victorian times!!).
Re the body/person thing...I guess a lot depends on ones religious views as to what constitutes a person and what is a body, either way the cadave needs to be treated with the utmost respect. It is people such as these that have donated their body to medical science that ultimatly mean why we don't have body snatching anymore, and why we know so much more about the anatomical structures of the human. Personally I think that the show was done with alot of dignity. I do not really agree with the whole plastination approach, but I think that the use it has to show people the intricate details of their body possibly outweighs this.
Of note... in the UK any tissue (ANY tissue) that is removed/cut away from a cadave is kept with the body and is all cremated/buried together. There are very strict laws regarding where anatomy can be displayed like this and how long specimens can be kept for etc etc. If you are interested there is a service once a year that medical students can go to in one of the London catherdrals to comemorate the people that they have been learning from for thepast year.

[Lindsay]

Love it.... really well-presented.
Much worse when you're there and you can smell it too, believe me!

[Cerocfan]

Are they doing one to show us where the clitoris is?!?

CJ, the VERY bad map reader...

Wouldn't have said you were bad @ map reading considering how your travels
Have the very episode with detailed info if you really feel you need some outside help

Sue

[Cerocfan]

oops!....considering how far you travel....

[Dance Demon]

Are they doing one to show us where the clitoris is?!?

CJ, the VERY bad map reader...

what's the difference between a clitoris & a golf ball ?

a man will spend 20 minutes looking for a golf ball.......................

[Lindsay]

DD....... awful!

[Dreadful Scathe]

what's the difference between a clitoris & a golf ball ?

a man will spend 20 minutes looking for a golf ball.......................

thats only because experience cant help with where the golf ball is

[Gadget]

I caught the last one of this series - as someone who will not watch "Casualty" or even "Animal Hospital" while eating tea I found it mildly gross that the corpses were still gooey {Especially when he cut away the protective membrain to the fore-arm muscles and haulled them to get the hand to contract... and using the industrial bacon slicer to slice a brain.}
- must be some sort of internal mind-washing thought process that when something dies it dries out immediatly.

I understand anatomy, have studied "Greys Anatomy" in detail (brilliant for drawing ) I think that I was just as 'shocked' by the nude models as the cavadars.