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27699: (reply) Re: 27687; K White (info): Human bones in the U.S.





From: Raber

I don't know if it's legal or not but I know of medical people who used to bring back skulls from Haiti. There is man at the State Medical School who will boil bodies and sell you the skeleton. Those bodies are the unclaimed bodies at the national morgue. Many are legally given to the medical school but I doubt any paperwork is ever involved. The man in charge of taking care of the bodies dissected by students will also process entire skeletons for those same students or whomever wants a skeleton for study sessions. 10 years ago, when the exchange rate was 16 gourdes to a dollar, you could buy an entire rather fresh (the bones were not dessicated and had a darker coloration) skeleton in a box for 1000 gourdes. A skull only would go for 200 gourdes. The man would just go to his large supply of bodies, decapitate one, boil the head and remove the flesh. Medical and other students in Haiti can tell you about seing the way the bodies are "processed" right on campus. Groups of students often go in together to buy a skeleton for anatomy class. Some American medical workers would buy some through some Haitian students. When they started X-raying all luggage coming from Haiti, American medical people quit bringing skulls back.