Understanding complex systems: lessons from Auzoux’s and von Hagens’s anatomical models |
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Authors: | Antonio G Valdecasas Ana M Correas Carmen R Guerrero Jesús Juez |
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Institution: | 1.Museo Nacional Ciencias Naturales (CSIC),Madrid,Spain;2.Madrid,Spain;3.Instituto Cardenal Cisneros,Madrid,Spain |
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Abstract: | Animal and human anatomy is among the most complex systems known, and suitable teaching methods have been of great importance
in the progress of knowledge. Examining the human body is part of the process by which medical students come to understand
living forms. However, the need to preserve cadavers has led to the development of various techniques to manufacture models
for teaching purposes. A variety of materials, such as wax, wood, papier-maché, or glass, have long been used to construct animal and plant models. In the case of the human body, the most innovative,
yet controversial, method of preservation has been plastination, invented by the German physician Gunther von Hagens, by which
actual human bodies are preserved as odourless and aesthetic models for teaching and exhibitions. We point out in our study
that the ‘hands-on’ approach that some anatomical models allow, namely, the (clastic) disassembly and reassembly of the parts
of complex systems and their models, is not only a crucial tool for learning, but is far superior to the simple passive observation
that rigid, single-piece models allow. And what is valid for the learning of anatomy can be generalized to the acquisition
of knowledge of other complex physical systems. |
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