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Gunther von Hagens, the creator of the controversial “Body Worlds” exhibitions where dissected human and animal bodies were displayed, has died at the age of 81, according to his family.<\/b><\/p>\n
Sometimes known as “Doctor Death”, he became famous for developing a technique called plastination, by which fluids and fatty tissue in corpses are replaced by rubber and polymers.<\/p>\n
His family said in a statement that he had asked for his body to be made available for plastination and that they intended to carry out his wish.<\/p>\n
More than 58 million people worldwide have viewed his exhibitions, the statement said. However, religious groups and others have frequently objected to his display of human remains.<\/p>\n
His family’s statement said von Hagens died on Friday, a day after being admitted to a clinic in Heidelberg, Germany, with a brain haemorrhage. He had suffered from Parkinson’s Disease for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n
“It was Gunther von Hagens’ own wish to make his body available for plastination after his death,” the statement reads. “His family will respect and carry out this wish.”<\/p>\n
Born in Nazi-occupied Poland in the last months of World War Two, von Hagens grew up in communist East Germany before fleeing to the West in 1970.<\/p>\n
In the next few years he developed the plastination process. Specimens came to be used as teaching aids at universities or by research institutes.<\/p>\n
But it was not until the late 1990s that he began taking his Body Worlds exhibitions around the world.<\/p>\n
Colleagues paid tribute to a “pioneer, a researcher, an inventor” who made “anatomy accessible to the general public”, but critics have accused him of voyeurism and profiting commercially from death.<\/p>\n
In 2002 he caused further controversy by performing the first public autopsy in London for 170 years on camera<\/a>. Authorities had warned the event could be illegal but no charges were brought.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n