Just
when you think you've seen and heard everything, another mummy dummy shows
up.
The dummy in this case was
not the preserved corpse of a 72-year-old German man (though he was the
centerpiece). 
No, the dummy was Gunther von Hagens, a German professor,
who held the first public autopsy in London in 170 years on November 20, 2002 on the body of a
dead businessman from Germany. The post-mortem was conducted in a London
art gallery, where a sell-out crowd of approximately 450 people paid $19 a
person to watch the professor's performance.
And a performance it was:
von Hagens wore a black fedora (like the doctor, he pointed out, in
Rembrandt's 1632 painting, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, see
above) with his surgical gown to perform the
procedure which was broadcast on large screens in the gallery. The organs
of the deceased man were also reportedly passed around the audience. And
Channel 4, a
British TV network, aired an edited version of the show a few hours later.
Government authorities
warned that the public autopsy could be illegal, but did nothing to stop
von Hagens. A government official indicated that the professor was in
violation of the 1984 Anatomy Act (and other laws dating to 1832) because neither von Hagens nor the art
gallery were licensed for post-mortems. In fact, two plainclothes police
officers and two anatomy professors sat in the audience to judge if the
autopsy constituted criminal activity.
On the other hand, von
Hagens announced that he had the permission of the dead man's family. In
justifying the public autopsy, he told reporters that, "there is a
huge public demand to see what an autopsy entails, especially in light of
the fact that this procedure can be ordered on them or their loved ones
without their consent according to British law."
Controversy is not new to
von Hagens. His work with plastinated
mummies has caused quite a stir. Using dead bodies as art is also
not new: remember artist Damien
Hirst?
And what about the
autopsied man? He was a 72-year-old German man who, at the age of 50, was
laid off his job. From that point on, he became a heavy drinker. He also
smoked four packs of cigarettes a day for many decades. He died in March,
2002.
If nothing else, the
autopsy proved two things: first, the man died from heart failure brought
on by smoking and drinking, and second, that 450 people would pay to
see von Hagens perform.
