An Invaluable
Science Exhibit

After reading Stewart Skrill’s letter last week asking people to call Principal Shirley Stewart and NOT support the trip to the Bodies Exhibit in Boston, I picked up the phone and called her, in ABSOLUTE SUPPORT of taking the students to see the exhibit.

I’ve seen this exhibit twice and both times, left wishing that the display could be set up in downtown Randolph for everyone to see, especially the young people! Just maybe, one of those youngsters will think twice about lighting up that first cigarette after they’ve seen two lungs sitting next to each other, one from a non-smoker, all pink and pretty, and the other one from a smoker, completely gray and charcoal colored. They might just understand the importance of fiber in their diet after seeing a healthy colon opened up next to a colon diseased with diverticulitis.

After seeing the exhibit for the first time in Germany in 1997, I wanted to go home and eat carrots, and lettuce, and watermelon, and stay away from the French fries after seeing a clean, healthy artery compared to one all clogged up with plaque from a high fat diet. Someone seeing this exhibit might just think twice about their alcohol intake after seeing a healthy liver sitting next to a liver diseased with cirrhosis.

Pregnant ladies will better understand why they have to urinate so frequently when they see a baby’s head squashing down on the mommy’s bladder. We would all have a better understanding of human life, if we could see the precious little miscarried fetuses on display, starting out at four weeks just looking like a little booger, then at five weeks that little booger has arm and leg buds sticking out, then at six and seven weeks you see a dark spot in his little chest which is the heart!

It’s impossible to walk out of there and think we just evolved into this body by accident, especially when we see the 60,000 miles of blood vessels that make up our very intricate circulatory system suspended in liquid right before our eyes. Maybe these young folks will better understand that they’re not invincible once they see the incredible network that makes up our nervous system and how delicate and important every one of those nerves are to us. Yes, they will see reproductive organs, but any child can see pictures of that in anatomy books at the library.

This is a wonderful educational tool that everyone should see. There is no blood, guts, or gore. Though they are real human bodies, preserved precisely as they were at the time of death, they don’t look like cadavers. All fluids and fat have been removed and replaced with a plastic material injected into all the cells for preservation. I never once had the feeling that I was looking at a dead person; it just isn’t presented that way. The bodies don’t look real because they’ve been plasticized, but knowing they are real makes it that much more incredible to see. There’s nothing grotesque at all.

Yes, I think it’s awesome that these young students are getting the opportunity to go to this exhibit. My daughter saw the exhibit when she was 15 years old, and if I had younger children I’d take them to see this exhibit too, and as often as possible. I believe the sooner they see this exhibit the better their chances of not developing phobias when it comes to medical issues with their own, or someone else’s body. My suggestion would be, if your child is not included in the group that is going, order up enough tickets for the whole family and drive down! This exhibit will change your life in a good way. You can access the museum’s website for schedule and details at www.bostonmuseumofscience
.com

Janet Osha Miller

Braintree