Okay, here’s the setup: I live in the United States, and after my death (hypothetically, anyway) I want to have my corpse defleshed, articulated, and then given to my next of kin to be kept in a tasteful glass case.
Now, my question is: can I have this done legally? I know it’s legal for me to own a human skeleton—there’s a nice little store not two hours drive from my house where I can walk in off the street, buy a skeleton or two, and take them home in my back seat—but I don’t know the legal situation regarding, er, producing new ones.
Can anyone enlighten me? (Luckily, I don’t need an answer fast)
Try talking to the folks at Skulls Unlimited, an osteological specimen supplier that does a limited trade in real human skulls and skeletons as well as animal/bird skeletons and replicas. They advertise that their (few) real human skeletons are obtained from legal and ethical sources, so they might be able to advise you about how to become a legally and ethically sourced skeleton. That number is: 1-800-659-SKULL.
As far as I know, yes. Mostly from India and China, specifically, according to the website. And they certainly looked real in person, when I was at the store.
Influential Chicago theater actor Del Close tried to donate his skull to the Goodman Theater for use in productions of Hamlet, but it was eventually revealed that they were unable to find anyone to handle the job before the morgue insisted on evicting the body. Looks like this is something you need to plan for well in advance.
Nobody listened to poor old Percy Granger’s requests to be skeletonized and put on display at his museum either, although casual googling seems unclear on whether that was on account of Australian law or his widow.
Composting is easy, just have yourself cremated and have the ashes dumped on your compost heap. If I recall correctly, Lee Hayes of The Weavers had this done.
Iny my experience (recent U.S. medical student), the vast majority of skeletons/skulls/etc. are from actual humans: the models in our gross anatomy labs were, as were the skulls given to each pair of students for the entire semester of neuroscience. Plastic cast suffer from two major issues: 1) small details are often lost in the casting; 2) lack of variation (and the range of variation is frankly rather frightening).
That said, there is a place for synthetic models, especially in cases where a “real” version is impractical (ophthalmic or pelvic models) or functionally impossible (major joints).
My college had a real human skeleton in the figure drawing room. We called him “Henry” after the school’s founder, even though it wasn’t the actual Henry’s bones.
Before 1987 it was cheap and easy to get human bones and skeletons. Most of them came from India, who stopped exporting that year. My brother and I, both teenagers at the time, bought a real human skull (and it’s definitely not a cast) in 1984 from a mail order catalog for $80 or so - it was a gift for our older brother’s med school graduation.
Exactly! Just order some dermestid beetles and get that colony going! Once you have a bathtub’s worth, just die and put your carcass into the tub. You’ll be skeletonized in weeks.
Although it might just be that we have different definitions of tasteful, I suggest you start looking for this tasteful glass case promptly. It might prove a lot harder than skeletonizing yourself.
No reason you couldn’t have it custom-built. Just say it’s for your prize specimen of Elizabethan armour, and give dimensions that just happen to be similar to your own.