A Bare-Bones Business : Plastic Skeleton Factory Stands Tall in Texas

The Grateful Dead bought eight, Knotts Berry Farm ordered several. Doctors, medical schools, nursing schools, universities, research labs, high schools, anatomists, attorneys, physical therapists, athletic trainers and the entertainment industry buy them.

All have purchased authentic plastic reproductions of life-sized human skeletons from Medical Plastics Laboratory, a life-sized plastic human skeleton factory, in existence 39 years in this Texas town 110 miles south of Ft. Worth.

Grateful Dead, the rock group, put hair on its skeletons to make them look like members of the band for a video the group made. Knotts Berry Farm purchased racks of plastic bones for the amusement park’s annual Halloween Haunt.

Some organizations buy the skeletons as door prizes. But the principal market for the skeletons and plastic reproductions of muscles, nerves, brains, arteries, viscera and every part of the human anatomy is doctors and schools.

Sales Up Dramatically

Plastic skeletons retail for as little as $70 for 18-inch miniature models to as much as $3,445 for the Skele-Torso complete with viscera, nerves, arteries, ligaments, brains, heart, lungs, the works.

One of the most popular items sold is a general surgeon’s skeleton with skull dissected to show frontal and paranasal sinuses, one hand and one foot articulated with springs to demonstrate joint flexing. And it includes a hang-up mounting. The price, $495.

A pharmaceutical house once purchased 13,000 hearts from Medical Plastic Laboratory to give away to doctors to advertise the firm’s new line of heart medicine.

With stocks of natural human skeletons virtually depleted by the approximately 100 companies marketing human bones in this country, sales of plastic skeletons and plastic human parts have increased dramatically, reports Charles Wise, 54, president of MPL for the past 20 years.

For most of this century, India has been the only source of human bones for medical schools, for doctors and others all over the world, Wise said. “Then two years ago India put an embargo on exportation of human remains. Natural human skeletons have been used hundreds of years for teaching and studying anatomy in schools.

“There have been embargoes before, under the name of prestige and national pride by the Indian government,” he said. “However, this export ban may have been imposed largely due to rumors of skulduggery and grave robbing, and therefore it will probably last.”

The Indian government shut down the nation’s five major human bone suppliers, all located in Calcutta.

Wise said selling human bones to individuals and institutions “has been like any other business, selling something in demand. Natural human skeletons are marketed by sex, and various ages, child through adult. Our company has always sold human bones as well as plastic reproductions.”

A few skeletons from India sell for about $500. Inexpensive human skeletons with bones missing or damaged can be purchased for as little as $100. Human skulls from India in near-perfect condition sell for $125; damaged skulls are as inexpensive as $25.

Medical Plastics Laboratory is one of the largest industries in Gatesville, a farm center with a population of 7,000. The company employs 110, including designers, researchers, molders, crafts people who put all that together, and a sales force.

In 1949, two local physicians, Oliver Wendall Lowrey and his brother Elworth E. Lowrey, ordered a human skeleton from a company in natural bones from India. The doctors wanted the skeleton for anatomical reference and to provide simplified explanations to patients concerning diagnosis and treatment.

They were told there was such a heavy demand for human skeletons that they would have to wait eight months for delivery.

“That demand made such an impression on the two physicians they decided to launch a company manufacturing and selling realistic plastic skeletons,” Wise recalled.

The two doctors were joined by a dentist who occupied an adjoining office, Dr. Thomas R. Williams, and Gatesville cabinet maker Price Neeley.

All four men were recently returned World War II veterans. They rented a vacant machine shop and after several months perfected a process capable of reproducing an authentic plastic human skull.

Competition From Abroad

It was not until three years later that the three doctors and cabinet maker in their spare time were able to capture the exact color and texture in intricate detail of each bone in the human body and reproduced them in plastic skeleton form.

“Of course, wood, rubber and later plastic toy skeletons had been manufactured for years but this is the first time plastic skeletons had been cast in bones for mass production,” Wise said.

First, he recalled, anatomists and doctors repelled the idea of using plastic skeletons. They wanted the real thing. But as time went on, the plastic skeletons gained more acceptance.

The three founding doctors continued their medical practices but served as consultants and directors of the company, as they do to this day. Neeley, the cabinet maker, served as president of the company until 1968 and continued as a director until his death a year ago.

Medical Plastics Laboratory remains the only plastic skeleton and human parts factory in the United States. But competition has sprung up from other firms over the years, with two in Germany and one each in Hungary, Taiwan, England and Japan.

MPL is a closely held corporation, with 10 stockholders, and does not reveal sales figures.

MPL products are sold by sales representatives who call on customers, by direct mail and advertisements in medical and educational journals. Although 95% of sales are in this country and Canada, 5% of the skeletons and other plastic body parts are sold overseas to 47 countries.

What’s it like working in a factory where plastic skeletons and human parts are produced? Bonnie Brown, 69, a 30-year employee at her bench putting a skull together, echoed the sentiments of many of her fellow workers when she said:

“I have never been bored. I like working with plastic better than with the real thing because human bones are brittle and break easy. It’s definitely different.”