The Human Body Revealed

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7482.100

BMJ 2005;330:100 (8 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7482.100

reviews

Art

The Human Body Revealed

An exhibition at the National Museum of Health and Medicine,Washington DC, until June 2005.

Admission free http://nmhm.washingtondc.museum/exhibits/revealed/index.html

Rating: $*$ $*$

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

For this exhibition artists have tried to create a model ofthe human body by combining real images with hand-drawn pictures,to "show the body, not as medical illustrations, but as it actuallyis." That is to say, the artists have taken anatomical datafrom magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, and electronmicroscopy, reconstructed it in three dimensions, and then addedcolour, shadows, and shapes by hand. The result, they say, "isthe art in science: to turn science into art."

Close encounters: an image of hairand (below) the endocrine and cardiovascular systems

The images come from the latest book by the journalist and impresarioAlexander Tsiaras, whose Anatomical Travelogue company producesmultimedia medical content for print and television. The insidecover of the new book, which was released on the day the exhibitionopened in November, modestly likens Tsiaras to Andreas Vesalius.

The first picture in the . . . [Full text of this article]

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Daniel Engber, freelance journalist

Washington DC, United States engber@lehrer.ucsf.edu