Q: Why use real human specimens instead of constructed models?

A: As Dr. Ray Glover, chief medical director for BODIES...The Exhibition states, "Seeing promotes understanding, and understanding promotes the most practical kind of body education possible. The body doesn't lie!" So, unlike models that idealize the body through the eyes of an artist, the specimens in this exhibition will show you the body and its parts as they really exist. Idealized models have been used for many years to teach about the body. However they don't allow for any variation in structure and variation - which is one of the most important things to see how bodies are made up and different.

As medical students and individuals have less time for the study of anatomy, it is even more important to have these unique specimens to give them both a greater understanding of anatomy and some sense of the variation of the human organism.