Thousands of years ago, they perfected the process of preserving bodies for religious purposes. Many of these can be found in the book “Pushing the limits” (Whalley, The first plastination attempts were restricted to very small specimens because the polymers used would cure spontaneously in a rather short time, thereby limiting the impregnation procedure.

Four steps are used in the standard process of plastination: fixation, In the third step, the specimen is then placed in a bath of liquid polymer, such as With the success of his patents, von Hagens went on to form the Institute for Plastination in Heidelberg, Germany in 1993.

In addition, the PEG in the specimen remains hygroscopic so that the specimens need to be kept away from bare hands or high air humidity (Uhlmann, Although exsiccation techniques, polymer embeddings and impregnation with non‐reactive hardening substances are still used in anatomical specimen preparation, all major attempts to establish these as an alternative to wet specimens and anatomical models came to a halt when the new method of plastination became the established standard of macroscopic preparation techniques.The first article about the new technique “Impregnation of large specimens with polymers” was published in the German journal Verhandlungen der Anatomischen Gesellschaft (von Hagens & Knebel, But Gunther von Hagens' way to plastination started already much earlier.

Eighty people were registered, all from the United States. The "First International Conference on Plastination" was actually entitled "Preservation of Biological Materials by Plastination."

Abstract. Von Hagens Plastination offers one of a kind, real medical human teaching specimens. Plastination is a process designed to preserve the body for educational and instructional purposes – in a more detailed way than ever before.

The Institute for Plastination, along with von Hagens, made their first showing of plastinated bodies in Japan in 1995, which drew more than three million visitors.

The method yielded dry, odourless, tangible and durable specimens which allowed new exhibition and teaching set‐ups and paved the way for sophisticated preparations and spectacular positioning of specimens. It wasn't very formal and it really wasn't international.

But we're counting it anyway.2. This brief review shall provide a historical context of plastination including some anecdotal spotlights on the ideas and innovations that lead to nowadays plastination techniques.Exsiccation is the oldest preservation method reaching back thousands of years. There are four steps in the standard process of plastination: fixation, dehydration, forced impregnation in a vacuum, and hardening.

There are different protocols of exchanging PEG with increasing molecular weight and applying heat and vacuum during the impregnation process. To define plastination as an area of professional activity and provide a means of learning and practicing plastination as a career.Well, that's the whole story in outline.

When plastinated human specimens were displayed in an exhibition at the National Science Museum in Tokyo in 1995 for the first time, the number of visitors exceeded all expectations (Figure Colouring of plastinates was done from the beginning to cover the drab colour of formalin fixation by vascular injection with epoxy, etc. However, when exhibitions of specimens became popular, proprietary colouring mixes were painted onto the plastinates.A separate target direction was the scientific applications of plastination. Anatomist Gunther von Hagens invented the process of plastination with the idea being to preserve human tissue in ways never thought possible. is limiting the applications of exsiccation techniques in practice. Finished PEG impregnated specimens have a similar dark‐brownish colour like paraffin specimens and can start leaking PEG at high temperatures. The resulting specimens were rather disappointing in the beginning, like the dark and shrunk piece of a kidney which was the first plastinated tissue piece done by Gunther von Hagens or the first real silicone plastinate of a heart as published by von Hagens in 1978 (Figure The use of polymers with almost unlimited pot‐life and therefore very long impregnation periods was limited to silicone specimen plastination while for the preparation of slices (sheet plastination) thermosetting polymers like epoxy E12, polyester P35 or polymerizing emulsion PEM were used.

It was well publicized throughout the world and attendance was the best ever.6.