The collection gathers animal and human anatomical preparations created by Paolo Gorini between 1834 and 1881. Scientist’s interest were primarily focused on the most common pathologies of his time and on his efforts to preserve decaying bodies. Paolo Gorini had developed various methods to create anatomical preparations. The simpler methods consisted in diping pieces in an alcoholic solution; the more complex operations involved deep and diffused injections in the vessels of the bloodless body. The injected substances, absorbing and replacing the internal bodily fluids, destroy the humid environment where the bacteria responsible of decomposition is born and bred. To give you a contemporary example, the work of the scientist-artist Gunther Von Hagens (inventor of Plastination) while arguable is ideally similar to Gorini’s, although the former uses silicon polymers.
