Mad Scientist ‘Dr Death’ Dies, Leaving Behind a Final Request That Shocks Everyone
So, here’s a little brain teaser for you: when you kick the bucket, do you want to be forever frozen in time, or just, you know, laid to rest like a regular Joe? Well, Gunther von Hagens, the one and only ‘Doctor Death’, didn’t just settle for the usual farewell. Nope, this German anatomist turned corpses into traveling art exhibits, making his ‘Body Worlds’ shows a sensation—and a little bit of a nightmare for some. At 81, after battling Parkinson’s and pushing boundaries between science, theater, and downright spectacle, von Hagens passed on—but true to his eccentric style, he’s now undergoing plastination himself. Picture that: a literal permanent display of ‘ol Doc Death for all to see. Fascinating? Morbid? Both. Yeah, he wasn’t just playing with death; he was reinventing it. Ready to dive into the strange, the controversial, and the downright bizarre world he created? LEARN MORE
When most of us die, we’d all like to think we’d be peacefully laid to rest by our loved ones. But one mad scientist, dubbed ‘doctor death’, preserved human corpses and then hung them out on display.
German anatomist Gunther von Hagens has now himself passed away, and has had an extraordinary final wish granted.
The 81-year-old generated both fascination and revulsion around the globe with his Body Worlds exhibits of preserved human corpses. Von Hagens’ family and the Institute for Plastination, which he founded, said he died on Friday (July 24). In 2010, von Hagens had announced that he was living with Parkinson’s disease.
Von Hagens trod a fine line between science, entertainment and commerce with his touring exhibits, as well as headline-grabbing actions such as a public post-mortem examination.
The exhibitions drew a lot of attention (Ulrich Baumgarten/Getty Images)
But at the heart of his work was the so-called ‘plastination process’, the act of replacing body fluids with liquid plastic that then hardens.
That technique, which he started developing in the 1970s, prevented decay, left tissues intact and allowed him to display preserved corpses and their inner organs. Yep… you read that right.
And now the ‘Dr Death’ himself will go through the process and have his body made available for plastation. His family have said they intend to carry out his wish.
It came after von Hagens died a day after being admitted to a clinic in Heidelberg, Germany, with a brain haemorrhage.
“It was Gunther von Hagens’ own wish to make his body available for plastination after his death,” the statement read. “His family will respect and carry out this wish.”
The scientist has now had his own wish granted (Getty Images)
The bizarre work of von Hagens
Von Hagens said he was helping viewers understand how their bodies work. The anatomist is ‘forced in his daily work to reject the taboos and convictions that people have about death and the dead’, von Hagens said of his work.
“I touch here a taboo, which is our body, and nothing is so near as our body is to us,” he said.
The shows used the corpses of people who agreed to donate their bodies for plastination. Critics had argued that von Hagens bordered on sensationalism with his works, which included a corpse riding a plastinated horse, and a pregnant woman with an eight-month-old foetus inside.
Von Hagens “plays with the corpses like a child plays with dolls”, the Rev Ernst Pulsfort, spiritual rector of Berlin’s Catholic Academy, said when the show first opened in the German capital in 2001.
During a Body Worlds show in London in 2002, the anatomist conducted Britain’s first public post-mortem examination in 170 years before a sellout crowd of hundreds, defying government warnings that it might be illegal. Von Hagens declared it a ‘huge success’.
The British Medical Association’s head of ethics, Dr Michael Wilkes, said it was ‘degrading and disrespectful’.
The Body Worlds exhibits were shown in several American cities after making their US debut in Los Angeles in 2004.
Von Hagens’ Plastinarium, where bodies are prepared, opened in the eastern German town of Guben in 2006.
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