When I die I wish my body to be reduced to a skeleton and given to a Buddhist monastery, where it would be used as an object of contemplation. I asked a taxidermist what they would charge for this and was given a ridiculous quote. My wife read a detective novel in which the forensic scientists reduced a corpse to its skeleton by the very simple process of boiling it, which allowed them to peel the flesh off very easily. I wonder if you know of any laboratory which might be persuade to undertake this task for me?
Of course, it would still be necessary to get the bones wired together, and if you have any advice on where this might be done, I would be doubly grateful. The job could be done in Thailand, but that would mean shipping the skeleton there and back. The cost of shipping a body to Thailand is £6.45 a kilo, and as I weigh 69kg that works out very expensive.
All the UK taxidermists we phoned were unwilling to do it, one claimed (wrongly we believe) that it was illegal, one said that even if a firm were to do it, it would cost up to £100,000, another said it would cost perhaps double the charge for a great ape (for which they would charge about £6,000). Another said there is a profession called 'Skeletal Preparation' rather than taxidermists, who would be the ones to contact.
One told us that it is not a simple job - you have to reduce the flesh to near the bone to allow the chemicals to do the final part of the job.
H. M. Inspector of Anatomy said that the anatomy department at St George's Hospital (London) recently reduced the body of a dwarf human to a skeleton and that they did this work in-house. They added, however, that hospitals for a long time now have made do with plastic skeletons - having previously imported real skeletons from abroad.
Your quote of £6.45 per kilo to ship your body to Thailand is extremely reasonable by funeral directors' standards and perhaps you should settle for that. Better still, arrange to be in Thailand when you die. Or ask the Buddhist monastery if they might like a plastic skeleton.
Natural Death Centre, 6 Blackstock Mews, Blackstock Road, London N4 2BT, UK (tel 0871 288 2098; fax 020 7354 3831; e-mail: rhino@dial.pipex.com; web: www.naturaldeath.org.uk).
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