If you ever consider visiting the Plastinarium in Guben you'd better make sure you have the stomach to handle what you'll see inside, because the Plastinarium is home to over 16,000 perfectly preserved corpses.
Have you ever heard of the traveling exhibition Body Worlds?
That's the Plastinarium's handiwork, and they've perfected the plastination process developed by anatomist Gunther von Hagens in 1977 to the point where the corpses are effectively preserved forever:
In a vacuum chamber, silicone and other polyurethane polymers are injected in lifeless corpses, preventing the natural process of withering decay. The skinless corpses have been used in medical schools across the globe, enabling future anatomists to understand how diseases affect the body. Each body takes about 1500 hours to plastinate and color to give a life-like appearance to cadavers.
Gunther gave control of the Plastinarium over to his son Rurik after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and despite a few lean years the Plastinarium has had no shortage of visitors...or donated bodies.
People are very interested in seeing the 40 different scientists employed by the Plastinarium dissect, embalm and plastinate the donated bodies piece by piece, the human body deconstructed right before their eyes.
This interest is also inspiring more people than ever before to donate their body to the plastination process because, as Rurik explains:
“They want to do something useful with their bodies, after they’re deceased, instead of being eaten by the worms.”
Read Inside The German Museum Of Perfectly Preserved Corpses here, or for an in-depth look into this unusual museum read The Plastinarium of Dr. von Hagens at Wired