Epiglottis

We went to the Body Worlds exhibit today. The things that "got" me were the little things, like toe bones, fingernails, and the guy holding his own skin... (ok that last one doesn't qualify under "little"), but it was all the hair on the tanned human skin and the creases in his feet and palms; it's all the details.

At the exhibit they also try to tell the history of anatomy as a discipline. One of the most fascinating classes I ever took was "History of the Body," for which we read Thomas Laquer's Making Sex, a profoundly insightful book on the interpretive history not only of gender but sex itself. Laquer offers evidence that women were seen as imperfect men, even equipped with masculine sex organs. Their penises and testicles were simply on the inside of the body because women's core temperatures were not hot enough to allow their sexual organs to descend. There are stories of young girls going out to run and jump, basically getting warm enough, and coming home as boys. Furthermore, men could easily lactate. There's a story of a man who produced so much milk that he made cheese out of it. Now that's funny. There are other, more disturbing stories about the body I could regal everyone with, but perhaps I'll save them for dinner conversation.

Anyway, Body Worlds, while an expensive exhibit, was worth going to see. P.S. The human nervous system really resembles a plant's roots. They had a brain and all the nerves on display; it actually was quite beautiful.