Anatomy for beginners
Stop cutting
I said STOP CUTTING
But it was no use. After a brief segue to the live model, being drawn on to make sure that the audience knows EXACTLY what we're talking about, Doctor Gunther had completely removed the entire reproductive system from the cadaver. He had to saw through pubic bone to get it all out and even then it all came with "extra" bits, like the bladder...
What else didn't I need to see? Oh yes: the dissection of a testis, the incision into the erectile tissue, the entire long and stringy vas deferens... with the organs splayed out on the tray with the prostate and seminal vesicles exposed, it looked less human and more like something out of Alien and yet when I look down into my lap I know that that's what I've got down there...
Trust me to tune into this series when they were discussing the reproductive system. Horrible to look out but like the proverbial car crash...
But that's nothing compared to the Doctor himself. Sure there's little he could do about his accent but he could have at least ditched the black hat to try to make himself look less like a mad German scientist. And lets not mention the accusations made against him about the illegal possession of dead bodies from Siberia, Kyrgyzstan and China. So we won't. But you can read about that in Wikipedia, not that anyone would suggest that it was 100% reliable! Doctor Gunther denies these accusations in his site.
Interestingly enough this show, when first televised in the UK, was implicated for being partly responsible for the fall in the number of cadavers donated in the UK.
Funniest moment of the show: when Doctor Gunther fondled the live male model and made his testicle move up and down. A bit of full-frontal male-to-male tickle isn't a new thing on SBS but in an educational context it was quite novel. Having an artist draw vas deferens and fallopian tubes on your nether regions also earnt a giggle.
Tags: Television, Anatomy for Beginners, Gunther Von Hagens.
