Methods

Abstract

In life, and so in death, the chest is the most dynamic physiologic organ center of the human body. Delicate pulmonary structures are extremely difficult to preserve in a fresh state that will permit the lung and mediastinal structures to be sectioned and presented to clinicians and anatomists in realistic dimensions in true color. Structural relationships become distorted in embalmed specimens where partial to complete color change takes place, blood is washed from the heart and vascular structures, lungs collapse, and extensive shrinkage occurs. The body assumes the decor of the anatomy laboratory cadaver—our learning model—which imposes a significant imaginative conversion from the anatomy laboratory to current sectional radiologic images or to living images of the operating room.