A display using dissected human cadavers including whole bodies and partial specimens has opened up in Madison. Chief Medical Director of Bodies: The Exhibition Dr. Roy Glover calls is a very personal experience. “Everything you see in the exhibition is all about you, muscles, nerves, blood vessels, organs, they’re all inside of you.”
Glover says young people can see first hand how their lifestyle decisions will affect their health by seeing a lung diseased from smoking displayed next to a healthy one. He says parents can ultimately decide whether the exhibition is too graphic for their children to see. More than 750,000 school children have attended the touring exhibition.
Fetuses in various stages of development are also displayed although housed in a seperate room.
The exhibition has received criticism amid accusations the cadavers are actually from Chinese prisons, an assertion Glover denies,”We have affadavits from our partner that tell us all the individuals died from natural causes.” He says they have also examined the bodies and found no evidence of trauma or torture. Glover says they get specimens from China because the best dissectors in the world are located there.
The exhibition’s parent company Premier, a for-profit firm, reached a settlement with the Attorneys General in New York and Missouri to post a disclaimer at events those states that the host cannot “independently verify” the specimens did not come from executed prisoners.
The Madison showing of Bodies: The Exhibition runs through spring.