True Love, a Carefree Life, Good Friends …
The Pursuit of Happiness is something that defines us all.
But have you ever stopped to ask yourself where happiness actually comes from? Or why it’s so important to us? Or why we can’t get enough of it? Or why it never seems to last?
Well, if you have, then this exhibition is perfect for you!

Because the subject of our tour today… is you!
With the help of real anatomical specimens called “Plastinates”, we’ll show you the hidden secrets that lie beneath your skin! You’ll learn fascinating facts about the functions of your organs. And by the time it’s over, we guarantee that you’ll be looking at yourself in a whole new light!

Importantly, you’ll also learn about your health today. Because everything you do, or don’t do with your body will eventually have an effect on it. Even Happiness has an effect on your body! … And you may be surprised to know you already carry the ingredients for Happiness inside you! … But more of that later.

Elevators, cars, home appliances, remote controls … Our modern way of life is sooo easy!
But sadly, all that comfort has only served to make our bodies sluggish and lazy. Which is a problem – because movement is incredibly important for our vitality and health!

The fact is, regular movement has an effect upon your whole body. It activates your circulation, strengthens your muscles and bones, sinks your cholesterol level, and reduces your fat reserves and stress hormones. By stimulating your brain and strengthening your immune system, movement also provides a long-term defence against illness and the frailties of old age.

And if all that isn’t enough for you, movement also activates your “Happiness Hormones”! Whether it’s a lap of running, cycling or sweating at the fitness studio, the complex interaction of muscles, bones and joints that we call exercise can help to reduce your stress and sweep away your anger – leading to better moods that make you feel much more balanced!

The skeleton is widely seen as a symbol of Death in our culture. Which is a shame, because your bones are actually full of life! Their cells are continuously renewing themselves – at such a rate that in just seven years, your entire skeleton will have been completely replaced!

Above all, your bones give you support. Without them, your body would immediately crumple into a heap. But at the same time, by working together with your muscles and joints, your bones are indispensible for your movements. With the help of your tendons, muscles are attached to specific points on your bones in order to create a mechanical pulley-system that converts muscular action into movement.

And that’s not all, because your bones can perform completely different functions too. As well as protecting your inner organs, for example, they’re used to store important mineral salts. And some bones even have a soft centre known as “marrow”, which is where your blood cells are formed! A million new red and white blood cells, as well as so-called “thrombocytes”, are created in your bone’s marrow every minute!

And as for the smallest bones in your body, they’re being used intensively by you even as I speak! Because I’m talking about the tiny “Auditory Ossicle Bones” located in your Middle Ear. They’re the bones that transmit the incoming sound waves from your eardrum to your Inner Ear. You’ll find such ear-bones on display in one of the showcases in this section.

In this showcase, you can see how your bones are constructed using the example of a frontally cut open thigh bone. It has a compact, hard exterior, while its interior is filled with a latticework of fine bone units. This enables the bone to create tension-lines, in order to reinforce it whenever it’s put under increased strain. The bone’s latticework construction not only makes it very light, but also very stable. The skeletal frame of an adult weighs less than ten kilograms – whereas one made from steel would weigh much more, and still not be as sturdy!

The firmness of your bones declines with age in a process called “Osteoporosis”. During osteoporosis, the latticeworks in the interior of your bones become less dense, and their firm exteriors become smaller.
You can see a good example of this on the longitudinally sectioned knee joint on the wall.

Osteoporosis makes a bone less sturdy and more easily fractured. But luckily there’s an effective remedy against it which is available without prescription, and comes completely free from side effects. … And yes, you’ve guessed it. … It’s movement!
Because even with osteoporosis, the same rule applies: our bones reinforce themselves wherever they’re used!

In order to make sure that a fractured bone can heal, the ends of the break need to be held so firmly in place that they can’t move against each other. Sometimes it’s enough to immobilize the effected body part with a plaster bandage or a binding soaked in plastic. But sometimes it’s also necessary to stabilise the fracture with either metal plates, or screws and wires. Once the fracture has healed, these metal components are usually removed.

The bones you can see here are absolutely tiny.

But no wonder they are so small ‑ they have to fit inside our ears, or more precisely, inside the inner ear, directly behind the eardrum. These are the smallest bones in the human body, the stirrup, hammer and anvil – and they really do look a little bit like the objects they are named after.

These three tiny bones have been entrusted with a mammoth task – they transfer sound from the eardrum to the inner ear. We hear by a transfer of the sound waves making our eardrum vibrate. These vibrations are then transmitted via the hammer, anvil and stirrup through the inner ear to the cochlea ‑ you can see a part of it in the dissected skull next to them. The stirrup is the bone furthest into the ear and is directly next to the cochlea. The cochlea is coiled rather like a snail-shell and is actually our hearing organ.

The cochlea processes the sound waves – for example, coming from this audioguide – into electrical impulses in the nerves and transmits them to the brain.

If you’d like to know more details about how we hear, just key in 15.

Transforming sound waves into nerve impulses is a process occurring in several stages. The outside ear is a bit like a funnel, collecting the sound waves moving through the air, leading them inside the skull until they meet the eardrum – a thin sheet of skin. The eardrum starts to vibrate, and these vibrations are passed through the middle ear, crossing the hammer, anvil and stirrup, the little bones you can see in the display case. These then also start to vibrate and intensify the movement. The stirrup is directly next to the cochlea – a kind of tube, curled up like a tiny snail shell, and filled with liquid. The vibrations of the stirrup are passed into this liquid and the liquid then begins to move. The inside of the cochlea is covered with a mass of tiny hairs connected to the auditory nerve. The movement of the hairs is a bit like seaweed in the sea, and as the hairs drift they send electric impulses down the auditory nerve into the brain.

Can you see the little loops on top of the cochlea resting inside the dissected skull? Inside is the vestibular system. This is the organ that helps us to keep our balance. It is made up of a delicate system of canals running through this part of the skull. On the other side of the skull, you can see what this normally looks like: it is enclosed in a solid bone structure. In order to show the cochlea and the vestibular system, the surrounding bone had to be carefully ground down until it was thin enough to reveal these tube-like structures. The three canals are filled with liquid, just like the cochlea, with a system of delicate hairs on the inside walls. When we move our head, this liquid also moves. In a similar way to the process of hearing, these hairs transfer movement into electrical impulses that are sent down the vestibular nerve, responsible for balance, to the brain. In that way, we know whether we are moving up or down, or bending to the right or the left.

The human body can perform some incredible feats of movement – and above all, we have our joints to thank for it! Alone in our hand, there are 36 joints! In our whole body, there are more than 100!

The manoeuvrability of a body-part is fundamentally pre-determined by the construction of its joint – and the higher its manoeuvrability, the larger the risk that the opposing surfaces of its joint will lose contact with each other. In order to make sure that such joints remain as stable as possible, they’re mostly surrounded by a solid capsule of connective tissue. Sinews and ligaments give the joint extra support, and also impede any extreme movements.

The surfaces of our joints are covered with cartilage. This prevents our bones from grating against each other, and also cushions any impacts, such as when we run. A slimy lubricant in the gap of our joints serves as a secondary cushion.

Without oil in a car’s engine, its pistons will overheat and seize up. And it’s more or less the same with your joints. The fluid in them serves a similar function to motor oil – by ensuring that the surfaces of your joints rub against each other as little as possible. However, as you get older, the amount of lubrication in your joints becomes less. This means that their surfaces can sometimes come into contact, leading to their cartilage getting worn down and your joints becoming inflamed. That type of wear and tear is what we call “Osteoarthritis”.

But it’s not just age that can damage your joints or wear down your cartilage. Over-exertion from hard physical labour, excessive weight, or injuries from sports can have the same effect. The most commonly affected joints are our hip and knee joints, due to the fact that they support our whole weight.

In this showcase, we’ve compared an arthritic knee joint to a healthy one. In the arthritic knee, the cartilage is already worn down, and you can see deep traces of wear and tear on it. Imagine how much a knee like this must have crunched and hurt!

Often, people suffering from osteoarthritis try to protect or relieve their affected joints. But as contradictory as it sounds, in cases like that, moderate and targeted exercise is actually the best medicine – because joint cartilages belong to the very few tissues in our body that possess no blood vessels. Cartilage therefore draws its nutrients directly from the joint fluid – and by moving them, that fluid gets sufficiently distributed! … So you see, with the right kind of exercise, the advancement of osteoarthritis can often be halted!

Advanced cases of osteoarthritis can produce unbearable pain – which significantly limits any movement. But luckily, today, those affected by it can be helped with an artificial joint called a “Prosthesis”.

A prosthesis copies the shape of a natural joint, and generally brings back normal movement. They’re made from either metal, plastic or ceramic.

Hello again! And welcome to your “Happiness Headquarters!”
Yes, that’s right, you heard me. Your “Happiness Headquarters!” Because this whole section deals with your Nervous System. And that’s where your happiness lives – created by the discharge of certain chemicals called “Neurotransmitters” and “Hormones” in your brain!

But your nervous system can do so much more than just keep you happy. As well as processing and coordinating almost all your bodily functions, it also enables you to consciously think and act. In other words, your nervous system makes you the person that you are! But at the same time, throughout your life, it also retains the capacity to learn and change. If you challenge it enough!

Your brain is your body’s “Command Centre” – and in essence, it forms the basis of who you are.
The surface of your brain is called a “Cortex” – and with all its folds and furrows, it looks a little like a walnut in a shell. The furrows of your cortex branch off and separate themselves deeper down – which means that the total surface area of your cortex is much larger than it appears to be from the outside. If it was laid out flat, your brain would actually cover an area of around one and a half square metres – which would only just fit inside this showcase!

You can recognise the rough structure of your brain with the help of the plastinated brain-half on display here. But you’ll find it even easier if you think of a brain as a three storey building:

On its ground floor, you’ll find the “Brain Stem”, which automatically controls all the bodily functions essential for life. That means, for instance, that right at this moment, your own brain stem isn’t only making sure that you’re breathing and digesting the food from your last meal, but also that your heart is continuing to circulate blood around your body. And that’s all done without you ever having to think about it consciously!
As well as the brain stem, the so-called “Cerebellum” also lives on the ground floor, where it coordinates your movements and balance. That part of your brain reacts very sensitively to alcohol – which is why it makes you sway if you get drunk!

In the middle storey, above the ground floor, lies the “Diencephalon”. This is where the parts that are linked to emotions are located. The centres for processing sensory perception can also be found here.

And on the top floor, living in the penthouse as it were, is the largest part of your brain – the “Cerebrum”. This is home to all your conscious thoughts and actions.

Whenever anyone says to you “use your grey cells”, they’re actually talking about the nerve cells in your brain. But there are two types of brain cells: the grey nerve cells that you use to think and process information; and the white nerve-fibres that connect those grey cells to each other to pass on their information. Your grey brain cells are located mainly in your cortex and in a few core areas deep inside your brain – and you can see them, and the white nerve-fibres, very clearly in the brain slices that are on display.

It’s your nervous system that allows the different parts of your body to work in unison – and it achieves that by employing a complex network of nerve fibres to pass on billions of weak electrical signals. Only the largest nerve fibres are displayed here – but inside you, these branch off into smaller and ever smaller fibres which eventually reach almost every corner of your body. At that size, your nerve fibres are so thin they can only be seen through a microscope.

Your spinal cord and brain make up what we call your “Central Nervous System”.
We call it the “Central” system because it controls functions of your body in a self-governing way. The rest of your nervous system is called your “Peripheral Nervous System” – and simply put, that consists of all those other nerve fibres that are spread throughout your body like a telephone network. They transmit things like sensory perception from your body to your brain – and also receive information from your brain relating to the management of certain body functions or movements. Such transmissions happen very quickly, at up to 400 kilometres an hour! If it wasn’t so fast, then a goalkeeper, for instance, would never be able to save a penalty!

The large projection on the wall here gives you an idea about how electrical impulses are used by your nerve cells to communicate with each other.

Your brain requires an extremely high level of oxygen to function properly – and it receives it through the blood supplied by a thick network of arteries. But if there’s ever a disruption to that blood supply, your brain reacts very sensitively to it. In fact, an interruption of just ten seconds is enough to make you fall unconscious!

An even longer disruption to your brain’s blood supply can cause the kind of serious damage displayed here in this brain slice. At the location of the dark stain, the brain tissue has died, causing internal bleeding. Depending upon which brain area is affected, people suffering from this type of damage may suddenly lose the use of an arm or leg, their power of speech or understanding, or many other types of loss. Due to the symptoms appearing “at a stroke” from a supposed condition of well-being, such events are known as “Strokes”. If centres of the brain necessary for survival are affected, they can even lead to death.

Most strokes occur when an artery in your brain becomes blocked – either through a blood clot, or through the build up of calcium deposits in the arterial walls. When this happens, the affected brain tissue is no longer supplied with oxygen, causing it to die. And arteries can also burst, resulting in the released blood pressing the surrounding brain tissue together to cause damage. Smoking, excessive weight, diabetes and high blood pressure can all significantly increase the risk of a stroke.

These specimens are actually plastic casts. To produce them, red plastic is injected into the arteries – and as that hardens, it takes on the shape of the vascular system. Once the process is complete, bacterial solutions or enzymes can be used to dissolve away the surrounding tissue. But only the main vascular branches can be represented. If the capillary bed was also filled with plastic, the cast would be so dense that we wouldn’t be able to distinguish a single blood vessels anymore with our bare eyes.

Thanks to your branching system of arteries and capillaries, your blood can reach almost every region of your body.

But beyond the continuous exchange of substances, your blood also serves an important function when it comes to your level of Happiness!

 Our blood also functions as an important delivery system for the messages that our brain sends out to the rest of our body – especially when those messages are intended to be followed for a long time. Sending a message like that through our nerves would result in the same signal having to be sent out over and over again. And that would overload our system very quickly. So our body has another way of sending out such messages – using hormones!

This includes all of those “Happiness Hormones” that make us feel so good – like Dopamine, Serotonin, Endorphins, and Oxytocin. In effect, all of these substances either stimulate us, relax us, or reduce our pain to such an extent that they’re known as our “endogenous” or “body-made” drugs!

In times gone by, people believed that the dwelling place of all your emotions lay in your heart. But today we know better. Because today we’re aware that any heartbreak or euphoria you might feel stems from your brain. Or better said, from a very specific area in your brain, called your “Limbic System”.

The Limbic System isn’t really a distinct anatomical structure, but rather a complex functional unit made up from several different regions of the brain. One of them is an area of the inner cerebral cortex at the lower end of the frontal lobes called the “nucleus accumbens”. Other Happiness Centres are located in the Midbrain.

All of these participating brain structures produce a substance called Dopamine – a chemical messenger that makes us feel happy and content. Above all, it’s produced when things go better for us than expected – and together with other chemical messengers like Serotonin, Norepinephrine and Endorphins, Dopamine acts as a kind of reward system for us, that makes it easier for us to make future decisions. Because if something makes us feel happy, we’re more than willing to do it again!

But our Limbic System isn’t just responsible for our happiness. It’s also jointly responsible for our behaviour, and for many of our intellectual processes. That’s why a mental workout using our Limbic System can also stimulate our happiness hormones! So you see, it’s much better to chill out with a puzzle or a book than to vegetate in front of the TV!

And don’t forget … Being happy is also something you can learn. Just take a look at the wall panel with the video to see how!

It’s sometimes said that a person’s life can “hang by a thread” – but in fact, it should say that our life rests by the array of fine tubes that are our blood vessels! Because almost every single cell in our body is dependent upon the supply it receives through those blood vessels – and any disruption can therefore compromise a number of different organs.

The circulatory system that delivers blood from your heart to your body is called your “Cardio Vascular System”– and you should think of it as a busy haulage company travelling day and night to deliver goods. Your heart supplies the company’s trucks with power, and your blood vessels function as the roads they travel on. Our modern way of life puts particular pressure on these two organs – be it through an unhealthy diet, lack of movement, or the stress of everyday life.

You can hear more about your cardio-vascular system in the next section!

On average, 5 to 6 litres of blood circulate through the arteries of an adult. Above all, that blood supplies oxygen and nutrients, but it also collects any substances that need to be excreted or discharged.

It’s the job of your arteries to pump blood into all areas of your body – and in order to do that, they divide themselves up like branches, constantly renewing themselves on their way to your organs and tissues. Eventually, they become the extremely thin, hair-like vessels that we call “Capillaries”. At that size, the vessels are so narrow that only a single blood cell can pass through. This is where the metabolic exchange of oxygen takes place between your blood and your tissue.
After that process is complete, your blood collects itself again – this time in the vessels we call “Veins”, in order to be transported back to your heart.

Everyone needs a break sometime! … Unless it’s your heart!
Working nonstop around the clock, an adult heart beats a hundred thousand times a day at least – even when it’s at rest! And during that time, it pumps around 7500 litres of blood through your body – which is enough to fill more than 50 bathtubs! During times of physical exertion, it pumps even more!

With every single beat that your heart makes, it simultaneously maintains two circulatory systems: the so-called “Pulmonary System” for your lungs, and a larger system for the rest of your body.

If you look at the opened heart here, you’ll see that its interior consists of four hollow cavities: two small fore-chambers or “Atriums”, which receive the blood from your veins, and below them two larger heart chambers or “Ventricles” which press that blood out again. And of course, the blood always flows in the same direction!

The right half of your heart transports blood to your lungs – from where it flows back again, enriched with oxygen. The left side then distributes that blood into every last corner of your body via your arteries. Your heart needs more power for that job, so its left hand chamber has relatively stronger muscles than its right.

Your actual heart-beat is created when the muscle fibres of your heart’s chamber walls abruptly contract. This squeezes your blood out of the chamber with every contraction – and when that happens, four robust, hard-wearing heart valves open and close themselves as necessary. This ensures that during every action of your heart, your blood continues to flow in the right direction. When these valves close, their individual parts beat against each other, creating the heartbeat that you can hear in your chest.

Such an active muscle as your heart needs a particularly high amount of oxygen to function – and in order to get it, with every heartbeat, it siphons off 5 to 10 percent of your blood for its own vessels, called the “Coronary Arteries”.
But because of that, your heart reacts very sensitively if its blood supply is ever disturbed – such as when calcium deposits narrow one of its arteries. These calcium deposits are known as “Plaques”, and they normally build up unnoticed over many years. But once they’ve narrowed a coronary artery to about 70%, your heart suffers oxygen deficiency whenever it exerts itself – which causes pain. This condition is known as “Coronary Heart Disease” or “Angina Pectoris”.

It can also happen that a piece of plaque suddenly breaks away from your artery wall and becomes surrounded by a blood clot which blocks the vessel completely. You can see very clearly how that process takes place in a video here in this section.

When the cells of the affected region die, your heart finds it much harder to fulfil its function. When that happens, we call the sudden event a Heart Attack.

Heart attacks are the most common cause of death amongst apparently healthy people – and it’s therefore wise to do all you can to prevent it. That means not smoking, excercising, eating healthily and finding a balance to the stress of everyday life. Because smoking, excessive weight, and continuous stress significantly increase the risk of heart attacks!

As a human being, you could last for about 40 days without food, and about 4 days without water. But you could only survive for a few minutes without air! The reason for this is that all the cells of your body need oxygen you breathe-in to survive. Because it’s only with the help of oxygen that nutrients can be transformed into energy.

But the organs that we use to breathe can do far more than simply inhale oxygen. Amongst other things, we can smell with them, laugh with them, speak and sing with them, or even use them to play a musical instrument!

Singing and laughing, in particular, increase our feeling of Happiness. Laughing is a specific form of interpersonal communication that creates a sense of community, deepens ties, and relaxes stressful situations. In other words, laughing makes us feel good – even when our laughter isn’t for real!

Wow! Isn’t it amazing what the human voice can do!?

Your voice is created in your “Larynx”, which is where your expelled air vibrates your vocal cords – and because you can use the muscles in your larynx to tighten those vocal cords by different degrees, you’re able to change their tone. The tighter your vocal cords get, the higher your tone will become – and vice versa. The sounds you produce can then be formed into words in your oral cavity by using your tongue and lips.

Adult males have thicker vocal cords and a larger larynx than women or children – which is why their voices sound deeper. During teenage years, a young person’s larynx grows at such a rapid pace that coordinating their muscles and vocal cords can prove pretty difficult. When a teenager’s voice gets raspy because of it, we say that their voice has “broken”.

But having a beautiful voice doesn’t only depend on your vocal cords. Just like a guitar or violin, the “resonating body form” of your instrument also plays a role – and for you that means your throat, mouth and nose. If you doubt it, just try singing something while pinching your nose! … Sounds weird, doesn’t it?!

And now take a deeeeeeep breath! …

If you look at the plastinates in this showcase, you’ll be able to follow the route that the air takes down into your lungs.

The air first enters your body either through your nose or mouth – and then travels down past your Larynx to reach your wind pipe. Your windpipe then divides itself up at its lower end into your “Main Bronchial Tubes”, which stretch down left and right into the lobes of your lungs. Once there, your bronchial tubes divide themselves up again and again like the branches of a tree, until they finally flow into the tiny, bubble-like structures that we call “Pulmonary Alveoli”. It’s in these alveoli that the actual exchange of gasses takes place. Oxygen from the air you breathed in is absorbed into your blood – and in exchange, the waste-product Carbon Dioxide is removed from your blood and expelled from your body by breathing it out.

The healthy lung of an adult contains around 400 million pulmonary alveoli – which lie next to each other like grapes on a vine. They give the tissue of your lungs a spongy appearance – which is something you’ll be able to see much clearer in the plastinated cross section of a body a little further along.

Thanks to your respiratory tract, you’re in a constant state of interaction with the environment around you. But the air that you breathe in can also allow germs and pollutants to enter your body. And don’t forget, with every breath that you exhale, your body loses water!

Have you ever laughed so much that it’s given you stomach ache? Well, that’s because your so-called “Diaphragm” and your stomach muscles work incredibly hard when you laugh.

Your diaphragm is a sheet of muscle attached to your ribs, which spreads itself out like a dome between your abdomen and your chest area. You can get your best view of it here by looking at the plastinate from above.

When it comes to breathing, your diaphragm is absolutely essential!
When you breathe in, your diaphragm tenses and flattens itself out in a downwards direction. This enlarges your chest area, and allows the air to stream into your lungs. When your diaphragm relaxes, it arches back up into a dome and presses the air out again.

But when you laugh, that’s different! The normal movements used for breathing then take place at a much higher, convulsive speed – so your breath literally gets pushed out of your lungs with a “whoosh!”. Your chest and stomach muscles support your diaphragm in the job – and when the expelled air vibrates your larynx, it creates the typical “Ha! Ha!” sound that we know so well!

But did you know … laughing can make you happy even when you don’t mean it!
Because just ten minutes of laughter are enough to produce the “Happiness Hormone” Dopamine! It really doesn’t matter if you’re laughing for real or just going through the motions – and in fact, the effect is even being utilised now by a relatively new form of Yoga, called “Laughter Yoga”!

The video in this room will show you a few laughter exercises – so why not try it out for yourself? Because always remember:  A day without laughter is a day that’s been wasted!

The main active ingredient in cigarettes is Nicotine – and once that’s in your brain, it has the same effect on you as the natural chemical Dopamine. That means Nicotine can relax you, make you feel happy, or produce in you a pleasant feeling of excitement – which is of course why it becomes addictive so quickly! But the problem is, Nicotine is such a strong poison that it’s even used in pest control! And that’s not all – tobacco smoke is basically a cocktail of around 4,800 other chemical substances, 250 of which are poisonous, and 90 of which can cause cancer!
Above all, these substances damage your lungs. But through your blood, they can also reach the other parts of your body. That’s why smoking heightens your susceptibility to so many illnesses – not only lung cancer, but also cancer of the bladder, heart attacks, strokes, eye diseases and dementia. And just remember – it’s not only heavy smokers who are in danger. Occasional smokers and even passive smokers are also at a much higher risk!

Smoking is an addiction. And as such, it’s very hard to quit. But nevertheless, it’s worth the effort! Because once you stop, the risk to your health gradually diminishes – even if you’ve been smoking for many years! Your lungs return to their normal colour. And although the length of time needed for recovery depends upon how long you’ve been smoking, the average is just five years!

With every breath you take, you inhale dirt. But luckily, your lungs are prepared to deal with it!

You’re respiratory tracts contain a sticky mucous, which is there to catch dust and germs like a fly-trap. Then, once those particles have been caught, they’re transported back out of your body again within the mucous, with the help of tiny hairs.

Sometimes, however, not all the particles can be caught in that way – either because they’re too small*, or because this “automatic cleaning-system” for your lungs is overloaded or damaged. That’s what happens, for instance, with smokers.

When a smoker inhales cigarette smoke, so many soot and tar particles are breathed in along with it that the automatic cleaning mechanisms for their lungs are hopelessly overstretched. Consequently, the tar from their cigarette ends up collecting in the tissue of their lungs, where it actually turns them black. Just like the ones you can see here in the showcase!

“You are what you eat!” … And that’s not just a turn of phrase! Because somewhere in your body, molecules are still lying around from that pizza you gulped down a couple of weeks ago. Tiny traces of calcium are probably still in your bones too, from the birthday cake you ate last year – or even from the cheese that your mother consumed when she was pregnant with you! In a similar way, in your blood, you’ll still find the sugar from the orange juice that you drank this morning.

So you see … your food really does become a part of you – regardless of what you eat. That’s why eating the right thing is so important to your health!

Before any food can be utilized by your body’s cells, it first needs to be divided up into its tiniest components. That happens in a process called “Digestion” – and you can find out more about it in the next section of the exhibition!

Put simply, your digestive tract is a system of tubes that measures about 7 metres in length. We’ve laid them out lengthwise here, in order for you to see them properly – though in reality, all the tubes on display would normally be packed inside your abdomen!

The digestive process begins in your mouth – through chewing and the development of saliva. Your “Oesophagus” or “Gullet” then uses a wave-like reflex to transport any chewed-up pieces of food that you swallow down into your stomach. And in case you didn’t know it – that’s a process that even works when you’re standing on your head!

Once your meal reaches your stomach, it gets mixed up with a fluid called your “Gastric Juice” – which contains salty acids and enzymes that break the nourishment down into its smaller constituents. Depending upon the volume and composition of your meal, it can take anywhere from two to eight hours to digest it. Sugar, for example, is digested very quickly – which is why it makes you feel hungry again after just a short time.

Once your food has been sufficiently reduced into its nutritional components, your stomach sends it off into your “Duodenum” – which is a bent, C-shaped tube that emerges from your stomach to form the first part of your “Small Intestine“. This is where a secretion from your liver called “Bile” and another secretion from your pancreas join the mixture. On the way through the various twists and turns of your small intestine, these secretions continue to digest the nutrients until they’re finally broken down into their smallest molecules.

The majority of these nutrient molecules then pass through the mucous membrane of your small intestine into your blood – and in this way, they reach your liver, where they can be processed further. Any indigestible components continue on through your “Large Intestine” or “Colon” – where whatever remains is dehydrated and thickened before being excreted via the Rectum. All in all, a meal takes around 24 hours to complete its journey through your body’s digestive system after it’s been eaten.

Why don’t you take a closer look now at the individual sections of the digestive tract in the showcase.

Above all, your pancreas is there to produce digestive enzymes. These enable your body to absorb nutrients from any food that reaches your small intestine. But beside that, your pancreas also performs another function which is essential to your survival – namely the regulation of sugar in your blood.

Sugar delivers energy to your cells – and if your blood has too little of it, you’ll be unable to perform. But by the same token, if your blood contains too much sugar, it can harm your body. That’s why, if you’re healthy, your pancreas sets the level of sugar in your blood to just the right amount.

Depending upon what’s required, your pancreas will release one of two “messenger” chemicals called Insulin or Glucagon into your blood. If, for instance, you currently have a large amount of sugar in your blood because you’re still digesting a portion of spaghetti, then your pancreas will send out Insulin – causing the cells of your liver and your muscles to absorb the sugar for a later date. But if your body is instead using sugar, then your pancreas will send out Glucagon – causing your liver to release sugar back into your blood.

Some people’s blood sugar level is constantly too high. But that’s not because they consume too many sweet foods. Instead, it’s caused by a disruption to their sugar metabolism.

This type of illness is known as Diabetes. In a small number of those affected, their pancreas simply doesn’t create enough Insulin. This is what we call Type-I Diabetes. But in the vast majority of sufferers, their body’s cells react with increasing resistance to the hormone Insulin, meaning they’re unable to absorb sufficient amounts of sugar. Overeating and obesity are the main causes of this type of condition – which is known as Type-II Diabetes.
Above all, a high level of sugar in our blood can damage our blood vessels – which is something that affects our entire body. The most dramatic results of this are amputated legs, blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks and strokes.

You could say that your Liver is your body’s central laboratory.
It carries out more than 500 different functions – some of which are vital to your survival. But above all, your liver processes the nutrients that are sent to it from your intestines via your blood. Depending upon requirements, these are either utilized, stored, converted into other substances, or removed. The cells in your liver also produce “Bile”, which your intestines need to digest fat. This bile reaches the duodenum through your so-called “Bile Duct”. Or if no digestion is currently taking place, then it becomes stored in a thickened form in your gallbladder.

Your liver is also your most important detoxification organ – and as such, it’s the one responsible for breaking down alcohol! But if you send more alcohol to it than it can process, your liver grows fat. When that happens, your liver swells and turns yellow – like the fatty liver in this showcase. At this stage, your liver can still recover completely if you stop drinking. But if you continue to consume too much alcohol, then your liver will become permanently damaged. One after another, its cells will die off to be replaced with scar tissue. This will eventually spread throughout the organ like a net, so that any cells still functioning shrink together like tiny islands or knots. This “shrunken” liver condition is called “Cirrhosis” – and you can see an example of it in this showcase too.

This plastinated longitudinal body slice stems from a subject who was very overweight. Fatty tissues have not only been collected under the skin here, but also inside the body. The organs are literally packed in fat – and inside them there is also more fat than usual.

Obesity has become a major problem throughout the western world. Those who carry excessive weight around with them are generally not as healthy as those with normal weight – and they’re more prone to suffer from pains in their joints, high blood pressure, breathing problems, diabetes, heart disease and even certain kinds of cancer.

But … why are so many people in the western world overweight?

The first thing to remember is that a certain amount of body fat is necessary for us. It serves as insulation, as a cushion for certain body areas, and above all as somewhere to store energy for times of need! In that way, our body hasn’t really changed much over the last 40,000 years. But our way of life has!
For the first time in human history, energy-rich food is now available to us all the time. And the food industry is certainly in on the game! For decades, they’ve been producing ever more sugary, fatty and salty foods in ever larger portions. And because the combination of salt and fat makes everything taste better, it’s harder than ever for us now to stop eating when we should. We all know the feeling: that packet of potato crisps won’t get put away until every last crumb is gone! But our bodies just aren’t made for chocolate snacks or two-litre bottles of cola! They’re programmed for survival. And because of that, they store away any unused energy very effectively in our fat cells. … But when our fat cells get too full, they divide themselves up! That’s why overweight people can have three or even four times as many fat cells in their body as those with normal weight.

Even if they lose weight, they still have as many fat cells in their body as before. It’s just that they’re not as full as they used to be – and eventually, those fat cells are going to become so empty that they’ll literally scream out “We want pizza!” The person on the diet will feel hungry – and if they start to eat the same things that they did before, they’ll put on weight again!
But the problem is, their body has now been forewarned. So it makes an even better job now of storing fat for the future, and produces extra fat cells to cope with the demand! That’s what we call the Yo-Yo Effect. The more often someone uses hunger to lose weight, the more they end up weighing! If anything can help, then only a conscious and permanent change of diet in combination with exercise. Above all, it’s important to make our children aware of a healthy diet. Because the foundations for obesity are generally laid down in our early years.

The liver slices you can see here shows evidence of metastases – secondary tumors. The metastases are marked by the light-colored points. Since the liver has to process all the nutrients in the bloodstream, it has a constant flow of blood through it, which gives it a dark, reddish color. But this constant blood flow also means that tumor cells in the bloodstream are more likely to be trapped in the fine capillary blood vessels in the liver and then form secondary tumors. Moreover, since the liver works as practically the ‘first’ filter for all the blood from the digestive tract, it is the first place where the tumor cells can lodge. Secondary tumors in the liver are especially common in the case of intestinal cancer.

If you’d like to learn more about tumors, just press 36.

All tumors – whether benign or malignant ‑ consist of groups of cells growing out of control. Usually, benign tumors do not threaten the person’s life. They grow more slowly than malignant tumors and tend just to crowd out the surrounding host tissue without actually destroying it. Malignant tumors, on the other hand, have faster cell division and quick growth. To begin with, the tumor cells grow, rather like the roots of a plant, in the space between tissues. However, they soon destroy the immediate surrounding tissue and continue growing into other tissue or other organs. If a malignant tumor grows into a blood vessel, individual tumor cells can be released into the bloodstream. If these cancer cells are then trapped in the blood vessels of other organs, they will form new secondary tumors – a metastasis. The organs most at risk from this kind of secondary tumor are those with especially high blood throughput – the lungs and the liver. One other way that secondary tumors spread is through the lymph system. Untreated malignant tumors are always fatal, though sometimes faster and sometimes slower. Their rapid growth, though, does not only restrict the host organ’s function but also produces other serious complaints ‑ weakening the body’s defense system and leading to lack of appetite and severe weight-loss. The entire metabolic system tips out of balance until ultimately the system breaks down and the person dies.

The numerous metabolic processes taking place in your body create waste substances that are concentrated in your blood – and so it’s vital for your body to get rid of such substances if it wants to avoid being poisoned by them. A large portion of those waste products are expelled through your kidneys as urine – and in this way, your kidneys act as a kind of “waste treatment plant” for your whole body.
You can learn more about your kidneys, and how they function, in the next section.

You’ll also learn something there about our reproduction organs – which develop together with our urinary organs while we’re still embryos. That’s the reason why both sets of organs have such a close anatomical relationship to each other – and so it makes sense to view both systems at once.

These plastinates illustrate how the male and female urinary tracts are constructed. Both tracts consist of two kidneys, ureters, a bladder and a urethra.

Our kidneys work like sieves that filter our blood to produce urine – and through our urine, any soluble waste products created by the metabolic processes in our cells can be disposed of. Our kidneys also regulate the water and mineral levels in our body – and in order for them to do this, all of our blood needs to pass through our kidneys at a rate of 15 times an hour!

Our urine is funnelled from our kidneys to our “Renal Pelvis”, from where it’s propelled through our ureters into our bladder. After being collected in our bladder, it’s finally expelled in a controlled manner through our urethra.

The end of a woman’s urethra is located immediately before her vagina. But it has no direct connection to her reproductive organs. At a length of just 4 centimetres, a woman’s urethra is far shorter than a man’s – and this makes women much more susceptible to inflammations in their urinary tracts. A man’s urethra, on the other hand, is about 20 centimetres long. It travels through his penis to its end, and is not only used to expel urine, but also to deliver sperm during sexual intercourse.
But more about that later!

The blood in your body is being constantly filtered by your kidneys – not just once a day, but 360 times! That means, for example, that in an adult body with around 5 litres of blood, it takes just 4 minutes for a full clean! That’s a pretty impressive achievement! But how do our kidneys manage it?

Our blood reaches our Renal Cortex through our Renal Arteries, which are displayed in red in the opened kidney on display. At the Renal Cortex, the Arteries split up to become very fine blood vessels – as can be seen in the vessel specimen a little further along in this showcase.

If you look very closely, you’ll see with your naked eye that these capillaries create little bumps in the cortex that resemble small raspberries. Every kidney has about two and a half million of these so-called “Glomeruli” – and each of them is surrounded by a waterproof capsule. It’s inside these “Glomeruli” that our blood is filtered. The filtrate, which we call urine, is then collected in the waterproof capsules and sent off through a canal-like system of tiny tubes into the so-called “Medullas” of our inner kidney. Renal Medullas are the light, pyramid shaped structures that you can see in the opened specimen. Once there, our urine is concentrated, and finally sent out along collecting vessels into our Renal Pelvis, ready to be expelled.

Your kidneys are also responsible for regulating your blood pressure – which they do by releasing more or less water from your blood into your urine. When water is retained in your blood, you have a higher blood volume and consequently a higher blood pressure. But when your kidneys get rid of water through your urine, your blood pressure sinks.

No matter if it’s big or small, thick or thin – the penis is the epicentre of male lust!
However, a man’s testicles, “epididymides”, his “vas deferens” and various glands are just as important!

The parts of a man’s reproductive organs that are visible from outside are his penis and scrotum – which contains both of his egg shaped testicles and his “epididymides”, which are the narrow, tightly coiled tubes right beside them. Every single day, a testicle produces around 500 million sperm cells – and these ripen and mature inside the epididymides until the man’s next ejaculation.
There’s actually a good reason why testicles lie outside the body. Because inside it, they’d be too warm to produce sperm. Testicles need to be a little cooler – which is why heated seats are a very bad idea for any men hoping to reproduce!

But of course, what you’re really waiting to find out here is what happens when the … “OH YES!! NOW!!!” …. moment arrives!

Well … during a male orgasm, sperm cells are expelled from the man’s epididymides into his “carrying away vessel” or “vas deference” – and from there into his urethra. Once in his urethra, his prostate and seminal glands add a secretion to his sperm cells which feeds them and makes them more mobile. This mixture creates what we call “Semen” – which is then ejaculated out of the body by rhythmical contractions in the muscles of his urethra. The man’s sperm cells remain capable of fertilisation for two days after that —- which all makes it sound much less spectacular than it feels!

A little further along in this showcase, you can see the male prostate and seminal glands once again, this time displayed separately. A man’s prostate gland is located directly under his bladder, where it surrounds his urethra like a ring. Right behind it lie his seminal glands, which look like small horns.
Due to hormonal changes, a man’s prostate tends to increase in size with age. This often causes it to press onto his urethra, which creates problems when trying to pass water. You can see such an enlarged prostate in this showcase too!

In contrast to the sperm cells of a man, the egg cells of a woman are stored in her ovaries from birth. Then, once she reaches puberty, every 28 days or so, one of her egg cells matures inside one of her ovaries, and is transported to its accompanying fallopian tube during a process known as “Ovulation”. The fallopian tube then conveys her egg cell on to her uterus – and if it happens to rendezvous with a sperm cell on the way there, fertilisation takes place!

As you can see in this plastinate, a woman’s uterus lies just over and to the rear of her bladder. It is a hollow organ, possessing a thick wall of muscle fibres. If one of the woman’s egg cells has been fertilised, then by the time it arrives at the uterus, it will have already divided itself multiple times. This cluster of cells then nests itself in the so-called “Endometrium” or “Mucous-Lining” of her uterus, where it gradually grows. During the course of a woman’s pregnancy, her uterus expands to more than twenty times its original size. But if her egg cell has not been fertilized, then it is expelled during menstruation together with the endometrium – which replenishes itself with every cycle.

In the showcase on the opposite wall, you’ll notice that a female’s sex organs are hidden deep inside her. You can also see a plastinate that displays her clitoris. Few women, and even fewer men are aware that the clitoris and the penis are closely related. For a long time, the clitoris was thought to consist of nothing but a small mound visible between a woman’s labia. But in fact, it consists of a complex system of arousable tissue that stretches far back into her pelvis. Like a penis, a clitoris possesses erectile tissue which fills with blood and becomes enlarged during arousal. But a clitoris has twice as many nerve endings as a penis – which means it’s extremely sensitive to touch! … Without a clitoris, a woman cannot experience an orgasm.

For most mothers, the act of breast feeding is a very intimate moment.
As well as reinforcing the bond between a mother and her child, a mother’s breast milk is perfectly constituted to give her infant everything it needs. Breast milk provides a baby with the optimal mixture of proteins, fats and carbohydrates – and also helps to defend it from illness.

In order for the female breast to produce milk, its fatty tissue is permeated with so-called “Mammary Glands” and “Lactiferous Ducts”. These milk ducts are so fine that they’re invisible to the naked eye – though their number increases enormously during pregnancy. This fine network flows into a series of increasingly larger, collective ducts which finally end at the nipple.

Your body consists of billions of different cells. But it was created from just one – when a sperm cell from your father and an egg cell from your mother fused. That means you’re very lucky – because when a man reaches his climax during sexual intercourse, he ejaculates between 200 and 500 million sperm cells, which is about the same amount as the rice grains seen on the opposite wall. Of those, only about two hundred sperm cells actually make it to the fertilisation “hotspot” in the woman’s fallopian tube. And of that 200, only one single spermatozoon manages to actually fertilize the egg!

A fertilised egg cell contains the blueprint for a complete individual. Its unique chromosome mix has never existed before, and will never exist again – and it totally dictates the characteristics and features of that new human life.

So in other words … You’re one of a kind! … A different sperm cell from your father would have created a completely different person!

During the first ten weeks of a pregnancy, a growing child creates a very special organ for itself, to provide it with oxygen and nutrients from the blood of its mother. It’s called a “Placenta” – and it’s fundamentally a dense collection of blood vessels from the child which grows into the endometrium or mucous-lining of its mother’s uterus. The child is connected to this placenta by its so-called “Umbilical Cord”.

You can get a clear view of an umbilical cord in one of the placentas on display here – in the side of the placenta that faces the child. Heading out from the umbilical cord, arteries and veins cross over the tissue and branch out into the depths of the placenta to create a thick bed of capillaries. At the edges of this begin the membranes that surround the child to create its amniotic sac.

The plastinate adjacent to it shows the side of the placenta which is connected to the uterus wall. From there, the capillaries of the placenta are surrounded with the mother’s blood – which allows for the transmission of the oxygen and nutrients. In exchange, waste substances are also removed from the child’s blood – though this occurs exclusively through the capillary wall, in order to ensure that the blood of the mother and her child don’t mix!

Another important function of the placenta is the production of various hormones. Above all, these support the maintenance of the pregnancy, stimulating the growth of the mother’s uterus and mammary glands.

In these tubes, you can see the early stages in the development of a human being up to the 8^th week of pregnancy. At that stage, the new human is described as an “Embryo”.

Already after 4 weeks, the embryo possesses a heart, the early form of eyes, and four buds from which its limbs will grow. After 8 weeks, all of the important organs are present as basic units – and it already looks like a tiny child!

With the arrival of the 3^rd month of pregnancy, a new phase begins. We no longer speak of an embryo, but of a “Foetus”. At this point, the foetus weighs about two grams, and is around two and a half centimetres long. Its brain, heart and other important organs are now in place, along with its arms, legs and joints.
It’s now time for the growing and maturing phase to begin!

Up until the 4^th month, the foetus’ liver, pancreas, intestines and kidneys mature; hair and nails begin to grow; and the outer sex organs are visible. In the 5^th month, its nervous system begins to develop; its brain ripens; and the foetus can hear sounds and suck its thumb. … The mother can now feel movements for the first time! Swimming in its bubble of amniotic fluid, the foetus can move freely – but it’s nevertheless protected from vibrations from outside. After 7 months, the foetus has developed so far that it could now survive if it was born prematurely. In the last two months, it mainly grows in size and weight.

And then … the moment of truth arrives! … During its birth, the child is pressed out through its mother’s pelvis and vagina into the light of the world!

Welcome!

It’s your nervous system that allows the different parts of your body to work in unison – and it achieves that by employing a complex network of nerve fibres to pass on billions of weak electrical signals. Only the largest nerve fibres are displayed here – but inside you, these branch off into smaller and ever smaller fibres which eventually reach almost every corner of your body. At that size, your nerve fibres are so thin they can only be seen through a microscope.

Your spinal cord and brain make up what we call your “Central Nervous System”.
We call it the “Central” system because it controls functions of your body in a self-governing way. The rest of your nervous system is called your “Peripheral Nervous System” – and simply put, that consists of all those other nerve fibres that are spread throughout your body like a telephone network. They transmit things like sensory perception from your body to your brain – and also receive information from your brain relating to the management of certain body functions or movements. Such transmissions happen very quickly, at up to 400 kilometres an hour! If it wasn’t so fast, then a goalkeeper, for instance, would never be able to save a penalty!

The large projection on the wall here gives you an idea about how electrical impulses are used by your nerve cells to communicate with each other.

One component of your peripheral nervous system is your “Autonomic” or “Vegetative Nervous System” – which is so-named because it’s been removed from your direct control. The shrub-like web of nerves that you can see in front of the spine in this full-body plastinate, for example, is part of that system – and its name is the “Solar Plexus”. Perhaps you’ve heard of it before?

Above all, your vegetative nervous system steers the functions of your inner organs – controlling things like breathing, heartbeats and digestion, without you being consciously aware of it. It consists of two further systems called the “Sympathetic Nervous System” and the “Parasympathetic Nervous System”. The sympathetic system can be seen as your “performance and emergency” department – and it’s mostly affected by external stimulus such as manual exertion or physical stress. The parasympathetic system on the other hand works like your maintenance department, looking after inward actions like eating, digesting and excretion – all of which deliver either energy or relaxation.

Your vegetative nervous system is deeply influenced by your emotions – which means that your mood has a direct effect upon your body. You’ve no doubt felt this yourself during stressful situations, due to your increased heartbeat, sweating, flushed skin, trembling hands, higher blood pressure and so on. But it can also work the other way around. By altering your physical state, you can influence your mood – for example through conscious and calm deep breathing. This can reduce both physical and mental stress, and can also help you to find your own inner balance and lightness of spirit.
Why don’t you try a few deep breaths yourself, to see if it works?

The skeleton is widely seen as a symbol of Death in our culture. Which is a shame, because your bones are actually full of life! Their cells are continuously renewing themselves – at such a rate that in just seven years, your entire skeleton will have been completely replaced!

Above all, your bones give you support. Without them, your body would immediately crumple into a heap. But at the same time, by working together with your muscles and joints, your bones are indispensible for your movements. With the help of your tendons, muscles are attached to specific points on your bones in order to create a mechanical pulley-system that converts muscular action into movement.

And that’s not all, because your bones can perform completely different functions too. As well as protecting your inner organs, for example, they’re used to store important mineral salts. And some bones even have a soft centre known as “marrow”, which is where your blood cells are formed! A million new red and white blood cells, as well as so-called “thrombocytes”, are created in your bone’s marrow every minute!

And as for the smallest bones in your body, they’re being used intensively by you even as I speak! Because I’m talking about the tiny “Auditory Ossicle Bones” located in your Middle Ear. They’re the bones that transmit the incoming sound waves from your eardrum to your Inner Ear. You’ll find such ear-bones on display in one of the showcases in this section.

The human body can perform some incredible feats of movement – and above all, we have our joints to thank for it! Alone in our hand, there are 36 joints! In our whole body, there are more than 100!

On the plastinate here, we’ve highlighted the joints to make them easier for you to distinguish.

The manoeuvrability of a body-part is fundamentally pre-determined by the construction of its joint – and the higher its manoeuvrability, the larger the risk that the opposing surfaces of its joint will lose contact with each other. In order to make sure that such joints remain as stable as possible, they’re mostly surrounded by a solid capsule of connective tissue. Sinews and ligaments give the joint extra support, and also impede any extreme movements.

The surfaces of our joints are covered with cartilage. This prevents our bones from grating against each other, and also cushions any impacts, such as when we run. A slimy lubricant in the gap of our joints serves as a secondary cushion.

This plastinate shows the skeletal muscles that lie directly beneath our skin – and although the skin’s no longer present on it, it nevertheless appear as a complete body form.

This proves just how much our muscles determine our physical appearance – or at least, how they could make us look!

All in all, your body consists of 640 muscles – which all work on the same basic principle. When they’re active, they contract, shortening their length by up to 30 or 40 percent. Many of your muscles also have a counterpart, to bring them back to their original position. For example, the Biceps muscle on the front side of your upper arm is used to bend your arm – while its counterpart on the rear of your upper arm, the Triceps, contracts its muscle fibres to straighten your arm again. These various sets of muscles in your body are always perfectly synchronised. When one muscle contracts, the opposing one always puts the brakes on to dampen any excess energy. Without that, flowing, regulated movements would be impossible.

Your muscles are therefore not individual performers. They almost always work together with other muscle groups. For instance, it takes more than 40 muscles to take a single step – and these aren’t just located in your legs and pelvis, but above all in your back, where they work together to make sure you don’t fall over! If you kiss someone, you use 12 muscles. And if you laugh out loud, 20 muscles are used in your face and up to 80 across your whole body!

By the way … If you work out, then your muscles don’t actually get stronger during the training phase, but during their regeneration. The training period only provides an inducement, with the actual increase in performance taking place afterwards.
But even then, it doesn’t mean that any new muscle fibres are created. Instead, the cross-section of the existing fibres is simply enlarged. The actual number of muscle fibres in your body stays the same from birth.

Advanced cases of osteoarthritis can produce unbearable pain – which significantly limits any movement. But luckily, today, those affected by it can be helped with an artificial joint called a “Prosthesis”. On this exhibit, we’ve replaced several natural joints with artificial ones.

A prosthesis copies the shape of a natural joint, and generally brings back normal movement. They’re made from either metal, plastic or ceramic.
You can also see metal plates on several arm and leg bones here, like the ones used following a fracture.

In order to make sure that a fractured bone can heal, the ends of the break need to be held so firmly in place that they can’t move against each other. Sometimes it’s enough to immobilize the effected body part with a plaster bandage or a binding soaked in plastic. But sometimes it’s also necessary to stabilise the fracture with either metal plates, or screws and wires. Once the fracture has healed, these metal components are usually removed.

I’m sure you’ve experienced stressful situations like these! Your heart starts to race, your breathing increases, you start to sweat … But did you know that these reactions are actually caused by two hormones known as Adrenaline and Noradrenaline? They’re released into your blood during times of danger or stress by the so-called “Adrenal Glands” above your kidneys – and in a matter of seconds, they’re able to put your entire body into a state of emergency so that it can mobilise your energy reserves. Your blood pressure increases, your heart beats quicker, glucose is released, and your muscles are supplied with more blood.

On the plus side, these stress hormones heighten your ability to react, increase your courage, and restrict your sensitivity to pain – all of which are intended to help you survive. But the problem is, that was mostly beneficial back in the Stone Age – when our stress was primarily induced by predatory animals or attacking enemies! In the 21^st century, it’s problems like work, relationships, financial worries or hassle in traffic that have taken the place of those older dangers – to such an extent that our stress-systems are often running 24/7 without a break!

And that makes us ill. In particular, it’s problems with our jobs or families that produce the worst effects – and if our bodies can’t find sufficient relaxation from them, the chances of high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes are increased. Such feelings of overwork and exhaustion can also lead to a “Burnout”.

It’s therefore essential that we create enough opportunities in our lives to relax.
We need to forget our troubles and self-doubts for a while, and try to find a balance between our own needs and the needs of others. But that’s often easier said than done. There’s no universal cure for stress. Everyone’s situation is different – and we all have our own theories about Happiness and the Meaning of Life.

But nevertheless, it can sometimes help to question accepted viewpoints in order to concentrate for a moment on what’s really important. For instance, what would you regret, if you had to die tomorrow?
Studies have shown that it’s things like these that people most regret on their death beds:

“I wish I’d had more courage to be true to myself, instead of living the way others expected me to.”

“I wish I hadn’t worked so much.

“I wish I’d kept in contact with my friends.”

“I was too scared to show my feelings. That’s why I worked so hard and kept my family at a distance. They didn’t deserve to be left alone like that. I wish now that they’d had a chance to really get to know me.”

This plastinate has been prepared in such a way to allow you to see not only the inner organs but also those deeper in the body. This is why the right lung, the stomach, and most of the intestines have been removed. If you start by examining the chest cavity, you’ll notice that although the right lung has been removed, the branches of the bronchial tube have been left. Running along the ribs at the back of the cavity, the vessels and nerves are clearly visible. They primarily supply the muscles and the skin around the chest wall. The right chamber in the heart has been opened. The diaphragm, a muscular membrane, separates the chest cavity with the lungs and heart from the abdominal cavity below. The diaphragm is shown especially well here, as it arches over the liver and abdominal organs. The liver is on the right and a window has been opened in it to show the branching vessels contained in the liver tissue. The c-shaped curved tube below the liver is the duodenum. It normally emerges from the bottom of the stomach – although here the stomach has been removed. The organ joining the duodenum is the pancreas, running across in front of the spine. Here, the pancreas has been opened completely so you can see the channel down which the pancreas releases particular enzymes into the duodenum to help the digestive process. The spleen is at the other end of the pancreas – on the left side of the body. On either side, near the spleen and the liver, you’ll notice the kidneys with the urether leading down into the bladder. Along the spine, the two main blood vessels are visible: the aorta, the main artery, which divides into two – and the thicker vein, the vena cava, on the other side of the backbone.

This specimen presents the body in a series of thick slices. However, not all the organs and tissues have been sliced through completely, but some protrude from the surfaces to give a three-dimensional effect. Of course, this means the neighboring slices have gaps where the organs would have been – spaces reflecting the shape and size of the organs removed or the plastinated structures, illustrating their position in the body. In that sense, the neighboring structures are completely complementary and could simply be pushed together again to form an entire body.

You’ll notice that the skin is still intact on the slices. The plastination process merely removes fluid and fat, replacing them with plastic and leaving the cell structures undamaged. This is not only true for the cell walls, but also applies to the cell core – where the genetic information is stored. In theory, the cell cores in a plastinated specimen would be visible under the microscope.
The plastination process does not damage the hair either.

From a strictly biological standpoint, “Desire” and “Love” are merely there to promote reproduction. And, of course, in order to reproduce, a man must first ejaculate his semen close to a woman’s cervix.

Sounds like the most normal thing in the world, doesn’t it?

And yet the sexual act is still in many ways a taboo. Feelings of guilt and shame are so deeply embedded in us that a scientific approach to its anatomy still meets with disapproval and misunderstanding.

That’s one of the reasons why for so long people knew so little about the actual anatomy of sex.

Here’s Dr. Whalley again, to explain more:
In the Middle Ages, people actually thought that sperm were created inside a man’s brain, which was the seat of his spirit and intellect. The theory even said that they were transported down to his penis through his spinal cord!
But today we know better. Not least because certain couples agreed to make love for us inside the tube of an MRI-Scanner! Thanks to them, we now know, for instance, that depending upon the position, a man’s penis bends when it ejaculates – in order to get it as close as possible to the entrance of the woman’s uterus. We also discovered that women hold up to 70% more sperm inside them when they experience an orgasm – something which increases the chances of fertilisation.  

Our biological equipment is therefore decisively directed towards reproduction. But beyond that, there are many indications that our emotions like Love, Jealousy and Shame are also very cunning tactics of nature to get us to reproduce. Studies have proven, for instance, that men take more care of their female partners and offer them more attention during their fertile days – even though there are no distinguishable signs for a man to show him when his woman is ovulating.