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:
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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.
This issue is a lot more serious than some people realise. I watched a program on National Geographic on this some time back. Bones are useful not only to medical students, but also to cure a variety of problems – like replacing spinal discs, knee joints etc. So they have enormous commercial value.
My concern is how far this thing can go if unchecked. Grave robbery is bad enough and raises a lot of questions on ethics, sentiments etc. But that is just the beginning. If bones are to be used in humans, they need to be tested to make sure they are free from AIDS and a whole host of other diseases. It is expensive to do that on every bone you exhume. My worry is that crime may increase – after all, it is much easier to find a healthy, living person and kill them off for their bones.Given that we take years to settle every single suit in India, and given the attitude of our police (based on the post), this is really worrying. The article already talks about the killing of children…where will this all lead to?
You may be right. But they definitely serve a dual purpose. I’ve heard a story that before she died Mother Teresa said that she wanted to be buried in a tomb, because “we all know what happens in the graveyards of Calcutta.” I don’t know if it’s true, but its a saying that is pretty popular in Calcutta.
The end of Kalyug, and arrival of Kalki..perhaps? /tongue-firmly-in-cheek
Ennis, thanks for the clarification but I’m sorry I strongly feel that was an uncalled for comment. As for the rest of it, I suppose it must be the culture gap at work. For those of us who grew up in India, it would make big news if officials stopped “looking the other way” and actually did what they were supposed to do. And not to sound troll-like myself, but among all of the things that need fixing in India I find it unsurprising that this is not on anyone’s priority list (unless they’re actually killing people for their bones).
My comment about the European catacombs was meant to illustrate that it’s sometimes okay to shuffle bones around or use them otherwise. Imo, civic needs trump family sentiments (after a few generations).
🙂
Ah, but now you’re agreeing that it’s not an issue that either the masses or the bureaucrats care about.
I think there are good reasons why the police should care. For one thing, it’s a major health hazard. In another part of the article, they talked about the stench being so strong that you could smell it a mile away. Plenty of things smell in India, but the smell of rotting human flesh is a horrible one.
I raised the question about whether it mattered whose bones these were for a serious reason, not to troll. Clearly people don’t care very much right now. However, imagine that these were bones being stolen from funeral pyres for families of police, politicians, or major businessmen. I’d imagine it would hit home a bit more then. I’m not trying to stoke communal sentiments, but in a stratified society it’s not a surprise that some things matter more than others.
Hey Scott, I thought your last paragraph brought it home in terms of people in other countries ordering skeletons and not bothering much about their source. What about within India? Were you able to contact Indian med schools about who their sources are?
whither the angst yaar aboot some far off kolkatans. look closer to home.
then there was the story about people’s bones being stolen and replaced with pipes and such.
Assigning blame is not just about who’s supplying this but also about where the demand’s from.
Ennis:
From the article:
here you go
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I don’t think our indifference stems from communal or class issues. We Indians are just too fatalistic, too numb, too cynical. We have seen it all and nothing would surprise us any more. There is so much that is wrong that we just give up.
Ennis – I agree this should be taken seriously. In fact it’s good to have an unjaded perspective. I still remain unconvinced however that whose bones they are could ever be an issue in this particular game – thanks for sharing your views all the same.
Woodlawn Pere Lachaise Forest Lawn
I’m really getting into this. Scott, you are sporting!
I think that’s true everywhere, the dual purpose that revolves, if you will, around protecting valued remains, or Napoleon’s very ashes wouldn’t be at Les Invalides and, contrariwise, the Bolsheviks wouldn’t have hidden the bodies of Tsar Nicholas and f’ly so mysteriously. Of course the real estate etc. presupposes the cultural importance of keeping the body and its whereabouts preserved long after death. That’s a totally climate dependent idea, but consider this. If some people can only afford a spoon of ghee in the mouth and others can afford a piece of earth in perpetuity, what does that signify in terms of their relative means?
If Mother Teresa actually said that I’d be very much surprised and bothered, as it would run counter to her professed humility. Did you know she was originally a Loreto nun, and that the Little Sisters of the Poor wear the uniform blue and white striped saris that the ayahs of the Loreto order wear? I’ve always thought that that’s Mother Teresa’s answer to the (possibly perceived) snobberies of the Loreto Order. Mother Teresa was very much a Kolkiata socialist/communist, in her very own way.
Most of the skeletons prepared by Young Brothers are for domestic consumption and study. I don’t know if Young Brothers still exports bones, the best I could discover with the leads I had was that the bones filter through a string of middle men. YB stopped admitting to exporting bones around 2001 when they were busted by the MLA Javed Ahmed Khan.
But the rest of the bones–thousands of skeletons–are used by medical students and doctors. While many medical students can’t afford a properly prepared skeleton that retails for upwards of 20k rupees, they can afford one that is dug up from an old grave and not prepared very well. In the areas around medical schools it is still very common to find grave yard workers who will offer to dig up an old body for as little as 200 rupees. Or at least that is what local doctors and recent med school grads tell me.
It signifies that some people are very poor in India. Others have a lot of power. That isn’t exactly a new story though. In fact, versions of that story are told in every country in the world.
Is that all it tells you?
The issue is so big that what else can I say about it?
It would be quite a feat if the opposite were the case. Heck, some people can barely walk and chew gum at the same time, forget administering an entire country while being deboned.
Wise minds of Sepia, I ask you: Which merits more offense, cradle robbing or grave robbing?
Make no bones about it – the authorities are not taking this situation gravely..
Well, Just to add my two paisas I studied in a Med school (college!) in India. My Med School had a designated area where bodies would be buried, then exhumed after a few months to be converted into ‘bone sets’. 3 people shared a bone set.If the topic under study was,say the inferior extremity, one would take the pelvis, the other the femur etc..We were supposed to return the sets at the end of our anatomy course,but many did not.I, for one, returned everything except the skull of my dear mentor ‘Bhaskar’.Also,many students procured shiny, anatomically labelled bone sets from Punjab, their source a well kept secret.At the time,they were available for 5000 rupees in the underground market. There were plenty of dissection cadavers as well, shared between 6 people. A few people in every batch got nicknamed ‘caddie’ for their close resemblance to object of their dissection. Whenever we made inquiries about the source of the bodies, we were told that they were unclaimed bodies, especially from mental institutions. To be frank that does sound like a very plausible explanation. I don’t know what the law of the land is in this matter,however.
Henry Gray‘s comment (presumably the handle refers to this) made me wonder about the ‘demand side’ of all of this disgusting practice. So this is a question to all the health professionals here on SM.
Why would a scale model of the bones in the human body (plastic, plaster, ceramic, or any other suitable material) not be good enough for instructional purposes and for ‘up close’ learning? This can be supplemented by one or two ‘real bone sets’ in the entire medical school for everyone to see, and of course the cadaver dissections would provide more ‘up close’ interaction. Why do medical students feel the need to have their own, ‘real bone sets’?
I understand there is considerable variation in bone size and density between people in general, between kids and adults, male and female, and between the ‘races’ – but the basic bone structure is shared across the species. So I can imagine the basic variations – kids, adults, male, female, heavy set person, skinny person, and European, African, Asian, Indian, etc – being made into scale models, then mass produced, and used by medical students. On the other hand, wouldn’t there actually be a greater chance that the full variation of the bone structure in the human species will not be manifest when the student has their ‘own bones’ and moreover, when bones from only one area of the world are used in instruction, as would be the case if they are mostly from Kolkata, or even mostly from India?
The answer would be relevant because I’d guess this business is totally demand-driven. To curb the business, it is demand that would have to be addressed, not the supply – that is, going after the Young Brothers of the world will not work as long as med schools and students want the ‘real thing’.
A lot of things occur to me– the poorer you are, the less control you have over what will be done with your bod, but rich people get to be fully cremated or lovingly buried.
My daughter is busy writing a paper contrasting an Italian family crypt that is open to the public with the Bodies Exhibition still showing in NYC and SF. And this is purely coincidental.
Does having to save for your grave force you to accumulate capital in life?
Is dying poor more green?
Wasn’t Mozart really buried in a heap with others?
Actually I wonder whose bones are these ? As far as I know amongst the Hindus, if you follow the right procedure of cremation, you come back the next day and collect the ashes to disperse it in the ocean/river. Excepting for the people residing near the Ganges I am not sure whether majority of the Hindus cremate near river-banks.
Having attended a medical school in america, I can tell you that at my school, we each got a “bone set” to study from that we returned at the end of the year – i.e. there is not much demand for fresh bones since the same set is going to be used by the next class and so on. Also, one commenter mentioned the value of “fresh” bones – I have never heard of this, and I’m pretty certain the bone set I studied from wasn’t that fresh, yet I managed to learn from it just fine. As for plastic, I guess nobody really wants doctors to learn on fake models – otherwise we’ll soon be dissecting and practicing surgery on plastic bodies as well.
Dear Dr.Henry Gray,
Can we talk some time? I’m thinking of doing some follow up research for a documentary and would love to get some more information. My e-mail is sgcarney AT gmail.com
best,
scott carney
I guess concepts like reincarnation, where the dead body is not seen as important as a persons soul, might play a part in Indian society’s indifference. Where as societies that believe in resurrection of the dead would consider the dead body important as it shall reunite with the soul.
“As for plastic, I guess nobody really wants doctors to learn on fake models – otherwise we’ll soon be dissecting and practicing surgery on plastic bodies as well.”
It’s already been done. See this link.
Perhaps if the fact that you can make money out of this can be publicised, people will be more willing to simply donate their bodies once they are dead rather than having their graves stolen. Ofcourse, there is then the problem that only people in need of money would go for it, running into the class issue…
P.S. > Carney’s comments on this blog are vapid, speculative, unknowledgeable, unprincipled and unethical. To me at least, he has no credulity as a journalist. 11. “and a lot of other places in India, I’ve discovered recently” – unsubstantiated “people just go and dig up graves” – hyperbolic, a wild-ass claim “I don’t think that criminals should be protected” – childish 14 & 20 This is a journalist writing?! “puts some ghee in the body’s mouth and lights it on fire” – exaggeration 45. Highly speculative and illogical
“Everywhere else in the world people just put a headstone and then bury the body” – The man has an extremely limited knowledge of burial practices over the world including Christian countries. 52. How stupid can this get? Why bring Mother Teresa into it? Perhaps she was thinking of headstone tipping. Perhaps people go to Calcutta graveyards to make love, to defecate, to urinate, to masturbate; the possibilities are endless, but Carney uses her to bolster his story. 64. “domestic consumption” — surely you jest! Latinate idiocy. The second paragraph is all hearsay. 66. “what else can I say” — Nothing at all – not until you’ve read Jessica Mitford. 74. Dear Dr. Henry Gray : please don’t! You’ll be risking your reputation.
Maafi : I meant credibility.
It would really be better if you had actually read the story in WIRED before writing such a lengthy comment attacking my credibility. You can find a link at the top of this thread.
If you had read the report you would notice that I not only met people who work in the bone factories in Calcutta, but saw huge caches of bones that were being prepared for export. You might also have read that I had contacted more than 30 medical schools in the united states and interviewed them about their bone procurement. You would have also learned that I spoke with every major bone supplier in the United States and found out where the bones came from.
If you were unusually preceptive you might have also noticed that I was talking about the skeleton trade, and not the cadaver trade. It’s a subtle distinction, but skeletons were supplied by India to the UK and USA. Cadavers were always harvested domestically. If you re-read the article and figure out why that is an important difference.
After reading the article, you might still have some qualms with what I wrote. In which case you should realize that every piece of writing in WIRED goes through two levels of fact checking where every sentence, and every word is followed up by a team of independent researchers. But I guess you could argue that they are all making this up too. In which case you are entitled to whatever opinion you want.
I think narayan is really stretching by calling you a fabulist. However in the aftermath of the Scott Beauchamp and W. Thomas Smith controversies, where publications like TNR and the NRO have copped to the fact that their fact-checking process could do little to catch fabrications supplied by trusted correspondents abroad, saying that Wired has a fact-checking process doesn’t automatically allay people’s fears about the veracity of your reporting.
That being said, I don’t disagree with the content of the Wired story–just that haters like narayan would be more convincingly blown out of the water with a few links to supporting online resources for us lazy blog-readers to peruse (yes, read closely).
For people interested in checking my facts feel free to use Google. I would suggest keywords like “bone factory” and “india bones”, “reuters India bones” and “Osta International” and “The Bone Room”. I’ve already done my research, you can read about it in my article. Anyone else who wants to can check my facts.
14 – Scott, going way back, your point is well taken. But there is a very limited tradition among Hindus of revisiting the gravesites of loved ones. As you pointed out, people either thoroughly (electrically is good) cremate the body or toss it, superficially burnt, into a river. I assume they do not track its progress downstream. Except for Muslim and Christian families, I wonder whether the emotional implications of bone-marketeering arent quite limited.
Nevertheless, your story is extremely interesting.
It is too early in the morning for hostility. Seriously. I can’t even articulate what I need to moderate. Carry on (or not, please).
I am skeptical of several points in this article:
This article has the same tone as the sex-slave trafficking articles of a couple years ago… they have proven to be vastly blown out of proportion.
I wonder how much of this skepticism would exist if the author of the article were named “Sai Karthikeyan” instead of “Scott Carney”.
fyi, ‘thoroughly’ cremating does not reduce everything to ashes; bones also remain – ashes and bones are taken to be merged with ocean or holy river leading finally to sea. Whether someone is able to track its progress or not – it does not mean they dont care about their loved ones remains getting back to the elements without being intercepted. Surely, such a green concept is to be appreciated. Instead, your ‘logic’ is boderline offensive. Emotional implications of bone marketing are there as long as you have emotions.