SKELETON MAKING.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 286, 4 December 1886, Page 3

SKELETON MAKING.

A Visit to a Carious Manufactory

In Hie Paris Suburbs.

The other day, being in Paris, it occurred to me that it would be an excellent opportunity of obtaining some really good osteological preparations, which I had heard were to be had at a more reasonable figure than the fancy prices asked for them in England. Oce day while assisting at tbe olfnic of a well-known physician, one of the patients on baing askei her profession said she depiotait les squtlettts, which on inquiry I ascertained to mean a " bone peeler." I at once interested myself in her condition, which was one of chlorosis, and ingratiated myself with her so that a week or two later she acceded, though reluctantly, to my request, to take me ta the fabrique where the specimens were prepared. It was a long journey, right: away into one of tbe desert plains bristling with chimney stacks which bound Paris on the north Bide. The building to which she conducted me was of immense wooden construction, subdivided into a main atelier and outhouses. The larger room was occupied by a series of large caldrons, the emanations from which were, even to one accustomed to the suave odor of the dissecting-room, nauseating in the extreme, and the blend formed with that of various crude antiseptics was more peculiar than fascinating. The disarticulation of skulls is carried on separately, as it is a branch requiring greater skill and nicety in its manipulation. It is efieoted on the skulls of young adults or children by the ingenious plan of filling the emptied cranial cavity with dried peas, which are then steeped in water, and in swelling compel the disjunction more delicately than could be done in any other way, Some of the caldrons contained the bodies of animals whose skeletons, if not as valuable as those of human beings, are atill indispensable for the study of natural history, and are forwarded in large numbers to the various collegiate establishments in France and abroad. After a prolonged boiling the limbs are placed en a table and the adhering tissues carefully removed, each workman or workwoman having his or her own specialty. 1 saw some men at work on frogs, lizards, etc., to obtain a satisfactory preparation of which requires a special and highly remunerative dexterity. The grease which collected at the top of the vats was scooped off and consigned to a receptacle in the corner of the room, but its ultimate destination I was unable to ascertain.

The bones are then bleached, the cheaper varieties simply by means of chloride of lime, the better ones ia the sun, and they ultimately pass into the finishing room, where they are titivated, assorted and converted, as far as may be, into " articulated skeletons." It requires no small-amount of ingenuity and knowledge of this particular department to be able to choose out of the miscellaneous collection of bones wherewithal to construct a skeleton which shall pays muster for that of a single individual, and only the best bones are so adapted, the remainder going to make up the disarticulated and half skeletons which have to answer the purposes of study for the more economically disposed students. Curiously enough, the sox appeared to have a distinct influence on the value of the skeleton, a female skeleton possessing a value many francs higher than that of the corresponding male. In another tank, awaiting treatment, were a number of infant bodies, varying from minus four months to plus several days. In the show rooms they were .arranged in a graduated scale (echelle nwntante), from the diminutive little ox-mortal, whoso height did not exceed four inches, to the adult baby, measuring from eighteen to twenty, all being in the attitude knoun in the military world as that of "attention." - Theee have a special value of their own, far greater in proportion to their Bize than that of their bigger brethren. I naturally wondered where all the bodies came from. I was told that the dissecting rooms and hospitals furnished a large proportion,' and that the proprietor of the establishment took care to monopolise the supply, which was always short of the demand. The convict establishments also contribute a share, and ray guide told me that on one occasion, during the very hot weather, a cargo of these ghastly debris was loft at the station by mistake until, warned v by the smell,.- tho. porters fetched the commiesaire of pjlice, who opined for a wholesale butchery and commenced an irquesti It turned up right in the end, woyennant foiaiwe, but this untoward occurrence hampered the supply for a while. The relative cheapness and abundance of the supply from Vienna: since the RuBSO-Turkish war had somewhat depressed the trade, but it seemed to nourish all the same, unaffected by the crise cmnmerciale, which had brought so many other neighbouring industries almoßt to a standstill. I obtained what I wiehed in" the way of specimens, and this at an extremely moderate rate, but I could not forhear the remark on leaving, "un drole de metier tout dememe." —" Locdon Medical Press."