New Types of Specimens through Plastination Plastination permits us to produce completely new types of specimens because it makes otherwise soft body parts such as muscles or the skin rigid, for example, in 3-millimeter-thick body slices. Plastination also makes it possible to produce ‘exploded-view’ specimens, ‘open-door’ specimens and ‘open-drawer’ specimens. With ‘exploded-view’ specimens, body parts are shifted in all directions. These specimens are particularly instructive with the body parts are ‘exploded’ in only one direction, for example, in the longitudinal. Instructional ‘open-door’ specimens also succeed in that hinges are attached in such a way that an open view into the innermost realms of the body is provided. Finally, parts of the body can be shifted forward like open drawers, thereby giving a clear insight into the body. These interstitial specimens that permit the observer to shift back the individual parts of the body to their original position in the mind’s eye and reduce the body to its original shape and size contrast with traditional ‘removal dissections’ practiced at universities. Here, each succeeding layer is removed from the bodies. The major disadvantages off this procedure is that by the end of the course, students have often forgotten which parts were removed at the beginning. The specimens shown in the book were dissected and plastinated at the Institute for Plastination under my supervision. They were the result of five years of work as of this writing.
The longitudinally expanded body.