Dr von Hagens invented the plastination technique in 1977 and founded the Institute of Plastination in Heidelberg in 1993. The first exhibition of whole bodies was displayed in Japan in 1995. Over the next two years von Hagens developed the Body Worlds exhibition, showing whole bodies plastinated in lifelike poses. He courted controversy in 2002 when he performed the first public autopsy in the UK for 170 years to a sell-out audience of 500 people in a London theatre

Credit : Action Press / Rex Features