preserved by plastination

The skinless Basketball Player, for example, is frozen in the middle of a crossover dribble, his muscular form balanced on the ball of his left foot.

Dr. von Hagens has meticulously revealed the Teacher's nervous system, from the brain to the thick spinal cord to the ever-finer nerves branching out to limbs and organs. With a book in one hand (an anatomy text, of course) and a piece of chalk in the other as if giving a lesson, the Teacher illustrates the multiple, simultaneous tasks of the nervous system: thought, speech, locomotor coordination, even regulation of breathing.

One display compares a human rider with his rearing horse; despite similarities in anatomical structures, there are major differences in proportions: The rider holds his own brain in one hand, the horse's much smaller one in the other.