Preparing the Bones
It turns out that preparing human bones for display is a lot like taking meat off of any other animal. Grave robbers and newbie skeleton preparers would boil the limbs so that the flesh would fall off. However, this was considered to be very sloppy workmanship, and it damaged the bones, leaving them to turn yellow over time. Skeleton experts could tell when they had been boiled, and it made them less valuable. The French had a far superior method of putting the limbs in acid, and leaving them for three months until the flesh disintegrated enough to slide off. This process also left the bones bleached and milky white, instead of yellow.
Apparently, bones will still smell like rotting flesh, even if they have been cleaned. It turns out that there are oils inside of bones that will continue to smell, unless the are drained, and fully dried out. While the Europeans had perfected the craft of creating skeletons, Americans during the 1800’s were struggling to keep up. In New York City alone, 500 bodies were transformed into full skeletons each year, but there was a struggle to make sure their quality me the standards doctors and scientists were looking for.
In the 1800’s, there was only one American man who knew how to fix this problem, and his name was Maitre Mazzur, and he studied the art of bone preparation in Paris. Due to this knowledge, he was a go-to expert on draining bone oil. Mazzur was careful not to let his secrets out in the public. He did not allow anyone inside of his workshop on Bleeker Street, for fear that he would lose his corner in the market of the industry.