An exhibition featuring human corpses has been described as fascinating and curious by its first visitors.

　　A steady stream of people were at the Body Worlds exhibition at the Old Truman Brewery in London's East End.

　　Some parents had brought their young children to see such exhibits as a pregnant woman with her womb exposed to reveal a seven-month-old foetus.

　　The exhibition by Professor Gunther von Hagens, from Germany, features 175 healthy and diseased body parts and 25 whole bodies. They are preserved in a process called plastinationswheresfluids from the human body are drained and exchanged with a type of plastic.

　　Lecturer Piers Storey, 44, from London had brought his step-son Louis Davis, three. He said: " I thought it would be good for him to see what his body looks like. There is nothing disturbing about it, but it's not art. It's an anatomical exhibition." Louis himself was quite interested in the exhibits, situated in the gallery without barriers and interspersed within a collection of trees and plants.

　　Film editor Saadi Haeri, 46, from London, had brought his son Louis, 10, and said he felt the exhibition demystified the human body.

　　Many visitors who paid the￡10 entrance fee dismissed the concerns expressed by the parents of children whose organs were secretly removed after their death in the Alder Hey Hospital scandal.

　　Barney Moss, 27, a computer programmer from London said: "I do not think there is anything in common here with what happened at Alder Hey because everybody has volunteered ... I do not understand why they have volunteered, I would not do it myself, it is not very dignified."