Bone(s), thugs ~n~ western medicine

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If you’re a scientist, you say that your own understanding of the world comes from standing on the shoulders of giants. If you’re a doctor, it turns out that your knowledge comes from standing on the pilfered graves of dead Indians:

Alas poor Yorick

Medical students across the world rely on anatomical models to become informed doctors. What many don’t realize is that a large number of these models are stolen from graves in Calcutta, India. For 200 years, the city has been the center of a shadowy network of bone traders who snatch up skeletons in order to sell them to universities and hospitals abroad. In colonial times, British doctors hired thieves to dig up bodies from Indian cemeteries. Despite changes in laws, a similar process is going strong today. Throughout parts of Calcutta, many of the cemeteries have been empty for generations. [Link]

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p>Last week Scott Carney broke the story of the human bone trade in West Bengal, with accounts at Wired, NPR and his own blog [Photos here].

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p>Why Indian bones? Well, skeletons are hard to get in the west, so medical schools look elsewhere:

In the US, for instance, most corpses receive a prompt burial, and bodies donated to science usually end up on the dissection table, their bones sawed to pieces and destined for cremation. So most skeletons used for medical study come from overseas. [Link]

In 1985, the Chicago Tribune reported that India had exported about 60,000 skulls and skeletons the year before. The supply was sufficient for every medical student in the developed world to buy a bone box along with their textbooks. [Link]

See, everything really does come from India!

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p>Twenty years ago, the bone trade was a legal multi-million dollar enterprise. This ended in 1986 with concerns that children were being killed for their skeletons:

In 1985 rumors began to surface that the bone dealers had run out of skeletons in Calcutta’s graveyards and were killing children for their skeletons. Child skeletons are rarer than adult skeletons and fetched a higher price on the market. A man was arrested for exporting more than 1,500 child skeletons. A member of the legislature accused him of murder and put the nail in the coffin for the legal industry. By 1986 exports had all but stopped and the 13 original bone exporters all seemingly shut their doors. [Link]

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p>However, since demand continued and plastic models are seen as a poor substitute, a business opportunity remained to be exploited. A company called Young Brothers, located near the largest morgues and cemetaries in town, brazenly advertised human bones for sale in its catalogues. The business was well known in the neighborhood:

The main storefront, neighbors said, was emitting a stench so horrible that it could be detected several blocks away. Neighbors also reported that they had seen bones drying on the roof and skeletons boiling in massive tubs. [Link]

However, after the crackdown business has continued for Young Brothers, albeit more quietly:

Since then Young Brothers has been more discreet about it’s business affairs, but he hasn’t exactly shuttered his doors. His brother in law … pulled a fetal skull off the shelf and offered to sell it to me for $400. [Link]

The most recent Young Brothers catalog (2006-2007) takes care to inform customers that it abides by the law. It lists a wide assortment of bones at wholesale prices, noting that they’re “for sale in India only.” Indian skeletons are somehow making it out of the country anyway. [Link]

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p>The police don’t think that cracking down on the trade is a high priority:

Indian authorities express a similar lack of concern. Although the international bone trade violates the national export law and local statutes against grave desecration, officials look the other way.”This is not a new thing,” says Rajeev Kumar, West Bengal’s deputy inspector general of police…”We are trying to implement the law based on the stress society places on it,” he adds. “Society does not see this as a very serious thing…” [Link]

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Personally, I don’t care what happens to my own body after I’m dead. If people want to sell their own skeletons, that’s fine by me. However, stealing somebody’s bones is stealing their most personal property, and that’s just wrong. Sounds like somebody needs to be smacked with the jawbone of an ass.

87 thoughts on “Bone(s), thugs ~n~ western medicine”

  3. From Wired:

    Some institutions have turned to plastic replicas. But artificial substitutes aren’t ideal. “Plastic models are reproductions of a single specimen and don’t include the range of variations found in real osteology,” says Samuel Kennedy, who stocks the anatomy program at Harvard Medical School. Students trained on facsimiles never see these differences among individuals. Moreover, the models aren’t entirely accurate. “The molding process doesn’t capture the detail of a real specimen,” Kennedy adds.”This is especially critical in the skull.”
  6. Last week Scott Carney broke the story of the human bone trade in West Bengal… Plastic models are seen as a poor substitute… “Plastic models are reproductions of a single specimen and don’t include the range of variations found in real osteology,”

    I can just imagine a disillusioned Calcuttan teen idling away his summer skinny dipping in the local watering hole, who is pulled away by an eager, busybody Bengali uncle and advised, “I want to say one Bhird to you, son. Just one Bhird. Bhones.” And therein lies a story.

  8. I remember there was once a gentleman in Kolkata who I heard of when I was about fifteen who either went by Konkal Sen or was referred to by that nickname,because he had made a substantial fortune supplying Desi Skeletons to medical establishments at home and abroad. Are they all grave robbed or are there people who can’t afford cremation?

    (I heard Meredith Viera pronouncing Kolkata today–“coal-cat-ah” she said– quite novel, I thought.)

  9. I named the skeleton in my high school anatomy class Vikram. Yes, I know it’s not funny, but I had a darker sense of humor back then.

  10. Once the body is dead it is like another piece of clay or mud. The problem is that normal people put too much value into a dead body. They want to give the dead person a religiously significant farewell by burying or cremating him.

    But unless doctors have a chance to study the human body how can they learn about it. So for the development of medical science it is imperative that many human bodies and organs should be made available to medical students and scientists.

    It is too bad that religious sentiments are allowed to come in the way of science.

  11. The problem is that normal people put too much value into a dead body. They want to give the dead person a religiously significant farewell by burying or cremating him.

    There is a certain value that needs to be acknowledged in mourning one’s dead. While people can argue that scientists need medical training, it also should go without saying that a community should be able to determine its own rules for dealing with their dead. If people voluntarily donate their bodies to science then I don’t see a problem. But what happens in Calcutta (and a lot of other places in India, I’ve recently discovered) is that people just go and dig up graves.

    I don’t think that criminals should be protected–even if at some point doctors get some educational benefit from the goods.

  12. Grave robbery is wrong on several levels; you don’t have to be religious to appreciate that.

    Of course, our disrespect of the dead hasn’t gone quite THIS far yet…

  13. “However, stealing somebody’s bones is stealing their most personal property, and that’s just wrong.”

    This is quite convincingly true while you’re alive, but a person cannot possess property, personal or otherwise, when they’re dead. It is, at worst, a theological question; at best its a way for some people to make a living who might otherwise be breaking their own bones to do it.

    Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

  14. “It is, at worst, a theological question; at best its a way for some people to make a living who might otherwise be breaking their own bones to do it.”

    I disagree that it is a theological question. I think it is a lot deeper than that. At least a cultural question, or an emotional one. For instance: lets say your spouse or child dies. It’s tragic. You are very upset. Not just for theological reasons, but because you have had a great loss. What would you do if the day after that person is buried someone digs up their body, rips all the flesh off of it and sells it to a foreigner? The only bones that have any value are the ones that are fresh — in the last month at the longest. These aren’t anonymous bodies. And no one gave medical companies permission to dig them up.

    My guess is that you would be pretty upset. But if you really think you wouldn’t be then maybe you have a point.

  15. Welcome, Scott! It’s always great to have the author of the piece show up in the comments.

    This is quite convincingly true while you’re alive, but a person cannot possess property, personal or otherwise, when they’re dead. It is, at worst, a theological question; at best its a way for some people to make a living who might otherwise be breaking their own bones to do it.

    No, but he or she can pass it on to their heirs. Unless you want to argue that somebody’s estate becomes fair play to scavengers the minute they die, in which case the Ambanis better watch out, that’s a lot of assets up for grabs at some point.

  17. doesnt the practice of cremations in india make bones harder to come by there than the west? I think most people in the west just bury the bodies? no?

    Yes, but there are laws in the US that strongly penalize grave robbing, and they are enforced unlike in India.

    That does raise another issue though. Do people not care this is going on because those are Muslim bones?

  18. Puliogre in da USA doesnt the practice of cremations in india make bones harder to come by there than the west? I think most people in the west just bury the bodies? no?

    Indian grave robbers tend to steal the bones of the dead. American grave robbers prefer to jump the bones of the dead 🙂

  19. Do people not care this is going on because those are Muslim bones?

    I think that’s probably stretching it. The predominant factor here might be class rather than religion. After all, it’s the poor whose graveyards are probably less protected and easy to raid. Grave robbery for medical reasons has gone on for time immemorial (at least since the middle ages). The most prominent examples that I can think of are Vesalius and, I also believe, Huxley, who both contributed to advances in our understanding of blood circulation.

  20. doesnt the practice of cremations in india make bones harder to come by there than the west? I think most people in the west just bury the bodies? no?

    Actually, no. A lot of the bones at the bone factory I visited came from a burning ghat frequented by poor Hindus. If you are very poor then the cost of firewood (up to 2000 rupees) is just unfordable. So the caretaker puts some ghee in the body’s mouth and lights it on fire. Then they dump the body right into the river. Then the family leaves. And then the bone collectors have a fresh body to deflesh. In fact, Mukti Biswas ran one the most popular cremation ghat in town.

  21. Indian grave robbers tend to steal the bones of the dead. American grave robbers prefer to jump the bones of the dead 🙂

    wow…trolling the OBITUARIES for grls…thats got to be a first.

  22. That does raise another issue though. Do people not care this is going on because those are Muslim bones?

    I wasn’t going to say that. Now that you’ve broken through, Ennis, I think in a society where cremation prevails, most people don’t see the body of the deceased the way you do, Scott, particularly since most can also be pretty sure it’s not their relative. But clearly, the people who actually do bury their dead do feel the same kind of attachment as Scott does, or similar, to the dead body.

  23. Actually, no. A lot of the bones at the bone factory I visited came from a burning ghat frequented by poor Hindus. If you are very poor then the cost of firewood (up to 2000 rupees) is just unfordable. So the caretaker puts some ghee in the body’s mouth and lights it on fire. Then they dump the body right into the river. Then the family leaves. And then the bone collectors have a fresh body to deflesh. In fact, Mukti Biswas ran one the most popular cremation ghat in town

    thats depressing.isnt there some more secure place to put the body instead of a river? Is it theft at that point?

  24. I wasn’t going to say that. Now that you’ve broken through, Ennis, I think in a society where cremation prevails, most people don’t see the body of the deceased the way you do, Scott, particularly since most can also be pretty sure it’s not their relative. But clearly, the people who actually do bury their dead do feel the same kind of attachment as Scott does, or similar, to the dead body.

    Why weren’t you going to say it about those Muslims? You went plenty of other places with your contribution to this thread. And spare us the high-minded language of “no attachment”– there’s plenty of attachment to a body especially when you’re responsible for cremating it. It’s not firewood you’re burning, it’s your parent.

    I’m also baffled by this: “most people don’t see it the way you do SCOTT”. This isn’t about Scott. There are plenty of people all over the world, yes, even desi, who would see it the way “Scott does”. I’m sure those poor Hindus who left their beloved family members in the river don’t mind that they were flayed just after right? Since they don’t feel the same kind of attachment that “Scott does”? Your comment was offensive, condescending and worst of all, wrong.

  26. thats depressing.isnt there some more secure place to put the body instead of a river? Is it theft at that point?

    Who needs a secure place? This is an opportunity to practice detachment!

  28. vulture, amma….amma, vulture. why dont you two get aquainted?

    Puli, are you Parsi?

    Personally, I find it hard to get exercised about the issue, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I was born in a Hindu family, but rather with my materialistic, atheistic conception of things. I also find the entire routine of ceremonies for 13 days, usually involving fattening the stomachs and pockets of some uninvolved and rather mercenary priests quite distasteful.

    But I can understand how the issue of defilement of the deceased can touch a raw nerve (in the living, the dead don’t have raw nerves after all).

  29. There is a cult in India which practices necrophilia. They dig up the graves and have sex with the dead women. If I remember correctly, they are called Agoras.

  30. Once the body is dead it is like another piece of clay or mud. The problem is that normal people put too much value into a dead body. They want to give the dead person a religiously significant farewell by burying or cremating him.

    For those who follow certain religions, there is value in bodies, or at least a desire to respect them. I really hope all of us remember that Christian and Muslim mutineers might find this thread uncomfortable, depending on where we allow it to go. I had two relatives die within a month of each other, exactly a year ago, so they are on my mind…and as a normal person, I am queasy about some of the sentiments being expressed here. My larger point is applicable to every thread, on every blog– be kind and sensitive with your words, since they impact more people than you realize.

    But unless doctors have a chance to study the human body how can they learn about it. So for the development of medical science it is imperative that many human bodies and organs should be made available to medical students and scientists.
    It is too bad that religious sentiments are allowed to come in the way of science.

    Again, a cautionary plea- science being superior to religion, combined with a thread about grave robbing and how perhaps it shouldn’t be a big deal…combustible. I’m not saying you should censor yourselves, I’m just saying to tread gently. More people lurk here than comment. If one of them buried a family member last week, that statement could hurt.

  31. im an atheist, and i still would go livid if someone stole my parents bodies. its not theirs to take. people of any religious background should recognize theft when they see it.

  32. There is a cult in India which practices necrophilia. They dig up the graves and have sex with the dead women. If I remember correctly, they are called Agoras.

    I was aware that Aghoris practiced cannibalism, but not about necrophilia. Although since defying boundaries and embracing the macabre is central to their belief systems, I guess it is possible.

  36. In colonial times, British doctors hired thieves to dig up bodies from Indian cemeteries. Despite changes in laws, a similar process is going strong today. Throughout parts of Calcutta, many of the cemeteries have been empty for generations.

    How widely known is this? I’m surprised that nobody has tried to grab this land for property development yet, what with the price of real estate in Indian cities and all.

    But then there’s the whole thing about “This hotel was built on an Indian burial ground”, which if Overlooked might contribute to making Jack a dull boy.

  37. I’m surprised that nobody has tried to grab this land for property development yet, what with the price of real estate in Indian cities and all.

    I’m no expert on Indian real estate, but I’d wager that the total amount of land occupied by temples and cemeteries/graveyards is monotonically non-decreasing over time.

  38. Why weren’t you going to say it about those Muslims? You went plenty of other places with your contribution to this thread. And spare us the high-minded language of “no attachment”– there’s plenty of attachment to a body especially when you’re responsible for cremating it. It’s not firewood you’re burning, it’s your parent. I’m also baffled by this: “most people don’t see it the way you do SCOTT”. This isn’t about Scott. There are plenty of people all over the world, yes, even desi, who would see it the way “Scott does”. I’m sure those poor Hindus who left their beloved family members in the river don’t mind that they were flayed just after right? Since they don’t feel the same kind of attachment that “Scott does”? Your comment was offensive, condescending and worst of all, wrong.

    Because, pondatti, as Anna ays, it’s inflammatory– incendiary. You are putting words and emphases in my mouth, for example, and your language is pretty inflammatory, so you have an answer right there. Anyway, as Scott noted, many of the bones come from burning ghats, so this argument that you want to start may lead nowhere except flames. I was addressing Scott in his role as a poster on this thread, as I was also addressing Ennis. What is done with bodies after death is based in religion but is also culturally embedded, so that people who are accustomed to different practices should be expected to approach this topic with different assumptions. In families that are accustomed to burial and more recently have turned to cremation, it’s a matter of choice whether to keep the ashes in an urn, or bury them or scatter them according to the wishes of the deceased. For people who themselves expect to be cremated and their ashes scattered in water as a matter of course, because of equally long established practice, those choices do not arise, because the body and its location are not venerated into the future. There may be a wide range of different values people are inculcated with, but it’s important to distinguish what is wrong from what are expectations based on cultural assumptions.

  39. reminds me of this movie: “The Body Snatcher” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037549/ – based on R.L. Stevenson story.

    “So for the development of medical science it is imperative that many human bodies and organs should be made available to medical students and scientists.”

    • yes, but made available by choice, not force/stealing. and as usual, it’s the poor who offer up their loved ones involuntarily (although alastair cook’s remains were also stolen). but that brings up the ethical question – how long is appropriate? after a suitable amount of time, it’s called archaeology (which is fascinating).
  40. the total amount of land occupied by temples and cemeteries/graveyards

    Can’t say much about cemeteries, except I do know a few which recycle their plots by moving the old bodies into crypts after a few years. Temples are a different story – they used to sprout up all over the place around Madras when the East Coast Road and Outer Ring Road were being made, solely so that the landowner could point to it and say “Look! Temple! Shiny! Can’t demolish! Can’t build road through my backyard! Ha ha ha ha ha!”. I don’t know what’s become of these temples of convenience.

  41. But unless doctors have a chance to study the human body how can they learn about it. So for the development of medical science it is imperative that many human bodies and organs should be made available to medical students and scientists.

    Here’s a simple solution – most people know they want to go to medical school pretty early on. So, when someone in the family of the doctor-wannabe dies, save his/her body (bodies) and bring it (them) to the medical school for dissection and learning. Parents save money for their kids to go to college – just add a body of a dead relative to the list too. Problem solved, no?

  43. “Indian authorities express a similar lack of concern. Although the international bone trade violates the national export law and local statutes against grave desecration, officials look the other way.”This is not a new thing,” says Rajeev Kumar, West Bengal’s deputy inspector general of police…”We are trying to implement the law based on the stress society places on it,” he adds. “Society does not see this as a very serious thing…” “

    I wonder if Indian authorities would express a similar lack of concern if the bone stealing was occurring for individuals from more wealthy backgrounds. Though from an economic standpoint it wouldn’t make sense for the bone stealers to pilfer from this more difficult source, I bet that if the bones of deceased relatives of politicians / businessmen were at issue then in the eyes of authorities, society would begin to see this as a more serious thing……..

  44. What is done with bodies after death is based in religion but is also culturally embedded, so that people who are accustomed to different practices should be expected to approach this topic with different assumptions. In families that are accustomed to burial and more recently have turned to cremation, it’s a matter of choice whether to keep the ashes in an urn, or bury them or scatter them according to the wishes of the deceased. For people who themselves expect to be cremated and their ashes scattered in water as a matter of course, because of equally long established practice, those choices do not arise, because the body and its location are not venerated into the future.

    You’re right that different people place different sorts of value on dead bodies and desecration of corpses. However, in any tradition, people want to control the disposition of the body. If a family believes they are cremating the body they would be distressed if it were to be snatched and sold in the incinerator. If a family thinks they are leaving the body in the Ganga, they will be upset if it is snatched away and sold by somebody else.

    If what you are saying is really true, then it would be easy enough for these companies to buy bodies directly from the families of the deceased. The fact that they do not indicates that these families would not be willing to sell them.

    Personally, I’m not so concerned with the status of my body after I die, but I damn well want to control it or have my estate do so. It’s not a bit of stray salvage. If I want to sell my body to med students, I’ll damn well do so myself and have my estate pocket the proceeds rather than some middle man.

  45. I’m not so concerned with the status of my body after I die, but I damn well want to control it or have my estate do so. It’s not a bit of stray salvage. If I want to sell my body to med students, I’ll damn well do so myself and have my estate pocket the proceeds rather than some middle man.

    Then I would suggest not being buried in Calcutta. Or the surrounding villages.

    On a related note, have you ever wondered why Christian graveyards in India always have huge cement blocks over the grave? Everywhere else in the world people just put a headstone and then bury the body. The tradition of cement tombs above the grave is popular in India because so many bodies were being stolen. This was the solution they came up with.

  46. I think you’ve pinned it down, Ennis. I don’t think the objectives of scientific research supersede these ethical considerations, so my next question is, what about people in the West who expect the kind of treatment you outlined above for bodies of the deceased in their own society, but who provide a market for Indian skeletons, and defend their choice without reproach?

  47. Parents save money for their kids to go to college – just add a body of a dead relative to the list too. Problem solved, no?
    Why limit yourself to dead relatives?

    Gives BYOB a whole new meaning. 😀

  48. That does raise another issue though. Do people not care this is going on because those are Muslim bones

    Trolling on your own blog? Is it that hard to figure out that people who dig up bones illegally most likely wouldn’t care about religion no matter what religion it is? Besides, Europe too has a history of digging up bones in a variety of contexts. Check out the catacombs when you’re in Paris or Rome next. Pretty cool actually and an excellent use of bones.

    I agree with the comment above that this is not necessarily a theological issue. People feel the need to honor and solemnenize certain events in a human life, and death is pretty much one of the biggest of these. I wish religionists wouldn’t feel it’s only their sentiments that are always at stake. There’s a lot of solace in ritual and ceremony and one doesnt need to care two hoots about theology in order to find it.

  49. Then I would suggest not being buried in Calcutta. Or the surrounding villages. On a related note, have you ever wondered why Christian graveyards in India always have huge cement blocks over the grave? Everywhere else in the world people just put a headstone and then bury the body. The tradition of cement tombs above the grave is popular in India because so many bodies were being stolen. This was the solution they came up with.

    It’s also because the muggy climate and alluvial soil, say in and around Kolkata, is one step from swamp, not the best environment for graveyards– bodies might not stay so reliably put in one place six feet under, or decay so slowly and give off as low emissions as at, say, Woodlawn. I think your conclusion is wrong, Scott. The British built themselves mini Mughal tombs in the Park Street Cemetery, still there since Regency times, and Woodlawn is also full of massive structures built over the relatively recent dead. It’s what people can afford too. And it’s not Christian per se, think Taj Mahal.

  50. Dear Divya,

    You said:

    Trolling on your own blog? Is it that hard to figure out that people who dig up bones illegally most likely wouldn’t care about religion no matter what religion it is?

    Please read the post:

    Indian authorities express a similar lack of concern. Although the international bone trade violates the national export law and local statutes against grave desecration, officials look the other way.”This is not a new thing,” says Rajeev Kumar, West Bengal’s deputy inspector general of police…”We are trying to implement the law based on the stress society places on it,” he adds. “Society does not see this as a very serious thing…”

    I’m not talking about the grave diggers, I’m talking about everybody else, hence the quote from the story. There isn’t any ambiguity about my intent, despite your attempts at misdirection.

    People do not care very much, neither the mass public nor the bureaucrats. This story got no coverage in the Indian media at all, a good indication that the readership didn’t care. The police tend to act only if they are concerned there have been killings. They have explicitly said that this is a low priority for them and that they are taking their cues from elsewhere.

    Scott clarified, in response to my question, that these are not just Muslim bones but also the bones of poor Hindus. It still makes me suspect that people don’t care because the people who read the newspapers and run the government are not the same people whose bones are being stolen.

    Besides, Europe too has a history of digging up bones in a variety of contexts.

    Yes, and it is also punished harshly which is precisely why the bone trade moved to India.