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Twins stuck together and other curiosities in new medical exhibition

Up close and personal with the human body. Soon at Medical Museion, the Body Collected

It is is designed to gross you out: A piece of skin with a tattoo on it from a pathological collection from 1898. It once belonged to a sailor.

One of many things at a new exhibition at the Medical Museion on the way medical science has collected the human body for the purpose of scientific research, diagnosis, and teaching. The items on display, some dating back to the 19th century, all began as part of medical collections of doctors and professors at the university and affiliated hospitals. Some of the newer items on display include biopsies, cells, and DNA, which are kept in the freezers of today’s biobanks.

“The exhibition shows how the bodily material has been preserved and stored, and how disease is examined in different levels of the body – from the whole body to the molecular level,” says project leader Bente Vinge Pedersen.

Provoking existential questions

This exhibition is the first time Medical Museion is showcasing a great portion of its collections of human remains, according to Bente Vinge Pedersen:

“The Body Collected is quite evocative and even shocking, especially when seen for the first time; however, framed in the logic of medical science, the exhibition creates an opprotunity for a more emotional and aesthetic experience”.

Sailor’s tattoo, courtesy of @bombaxtika

Alongside the exhibition, a program of activities and events will be launched. Bente hopes that “the exhibit will provoke many questions not only about health, disease and medical research, but also questions political, ethical, and existential in nature.”

The exhibition will open 22 May. More information and links on fact box upper right.

Conjoined twins from the Body Collected exhibit undergo a CT scan. Photo: @nagera, Instagram

See more images from the upcoming exhibition in our gallery below.

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