Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 October 1875 — Artistic Skeletons. [ARTICLE]

Artistic Skeletons.

A New York correspondent writes: “ Every physician must have a skeleton as part of their outfit, and therefore their preparation is an important feature of their profession. The students have neither the time nor the facilities for this work, and hence it naturally falls into the hands of the janitor. Skeletons are with him an article of merchandise, the quotations being SSO for a fine specimen, while an ordinaiy article is afforded for S3O. The important but difficult task is to clean the bones without marring them or leaving the mark of a knife. It is not necessary to tell how this is done, but the process is clear, though very simple. Each janitor may get up twenty-five skeletons in a season, sometimes more. This forms a. very important perquisite, and, indeed, if rightly improved, his berth can be made very profitable. There is also a constant importation of skeletons from Paris, which is carried on by the dealers in surgical instruments. The French have the art of whitening the bones in a way never attained in this country, and the price is generally from S6O to SIOO. The Parisian establishments excel in turning out the best skeletons of children, and even of infants, and some of the latter look like dear little doll-skeletons that one mfght want to handle in one’s arms or rock in the cradle. They are very cunning-look-ing things, these dear little baby-skele-tons.’’ A kind of tobacco all men ehew-ses—A pretty girl with money to-back-her.