Arrives before Christmas: the Human Bone Trade
By Lilith Ray
I’ve always had a singular interest in bones. From collecting and preserving those of roadkill, to studying diagrams of everything from the hyoid to the stapes, I certainly seem to be tickled by what we leave behind— those rattles in our bags. However for some people, this curiosity turns human bodies into collectible items. In fact, there are no federal laws that prevent the sale of human bones, except those of indigenous people. Plethoras of online stores are currently selling them, including Skulls Unlimited, The Bone Room, Skullstore, and Jon’s Bones. While some companies have self-imposed bans on the trade like Ebay or Etsy, Amazon has nothing of the sort. For example, I found this human tibia there next to a dog bone ad. It even arrived before Christmas. However, Bone Quality B was not the only lackluster description vendors had for human remains. The Bone Room had one skull listing titled “#578 8-9 Year old child”, the only description provided stating “Nice tooth eruption example. Slight damage to orbitals, 2 broken teeth, $2500.” There was nothing describing its origins, history, or identity. In both marketplaces, the writing fails to address the fact that these remains, while novel for the scientific mind, once belonged to people.
Perhaps the most extensive website, Jon’s Bones, has everything from individual vertebrae to entire skeletons. When asked where these bones come from, the creator of the website said that almost 100% of the bones they get are inherited, so they do not grave-robbed skulls or any type that is not educational and medical. While he does source his skulls from antique medical skeletons, he seems to be ignorant of the fact that since the first medical school was established, stolen and graverobbed remains have been peddled in to be used for dissection.
Human Tibia for sale on Amazon
In England, grave robbing for medical study was common until the Anatomy Act of 1832 was passed, allowing doctors to dissect any unclaimed bodies. Across the pond in Baltimore, they had a much more unorthodox method of doing things. The “resurrectionists” or “body snatchers” would steal bodies from graves, fold them into barrels filled with whiskey and ship them to medical schools around the country. They even sold the liquor afterwards. Across the coast, medical schools would hire these professionals to unearth bodies for dissection. Most often specimens would come from impoverished African or Native American communities. As an editorial writer in 1788 said, “surely no person can object”. Riots and outrage only ensued when white bodies were stolen, like the one which caused the 1788 New York Doctors Riot. Legend says that John Hicks, a medical student, was dissecting a body when he waved a limb at children staring through the window, shouting: “This is your mother’s arm! I just dug it up”. One of the kids indeed had just lost his mother. When the child’s father consequently dug up her grave, found no body. This sparked a violent mob who rioted and looted the area.
The supply of skeletons in the following century also came from overseas, from places like India. After the aforementioned Anatomy act, Doctors from the U.K. pressured Indians who worked closely with the dead to sell their bones. Because many were too poor to cremate their deceased, India’s bone industry thrived until 1986, when the export of human remains from India was banned after speculation of criminal activity to acquire them.
Despite this, Illegal bone exports from India are still happening today. In 2001, a bone supplier called Young Brothers gained suspicion when the health department started receiving complaints about a horrible stench and the sight of bones drying on the roof. After a raid, invoices were found detailing shipments to the United States and Europe. Even with overwhelming evidence, the owner won the case. The problem made news again in May of 2007 when police found the bones of over 100 people along a smuggling route. Unfortunately, because police simply do not have the resources or support to enforce this law, illegal shipments of bones are still exported from India today.
The unseen history of antique medical specimens is that many of these were sourced unethically, through grave-robbing impoverished people of color, and from unconsenting individuals in India too poor to afford proper services.
While Jon’s Bones and other vendors can have good missions- for example, to make bones widely accessible to medical students and osteologists, this does not excuse the commodification of human bodies and the reduction to sets of numbers and grades. The exploitative history of medical specimens must be acknowledged when they are being sold.
While my fascination with bones has definitely become obsessive at times and I view them with scientific curiosity, I never neglect to recognize that despite their alien appearance, they are a part of all of us that deserve to be respected.
In the eighth grade, when I got to run my hand over a paper-thin, yellowed shoulder blade, all I could think was Thank You.