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Creepy curiosities at the Morbid Museum

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Joanna Ebenstein, founder of the Morbid Anatomy Library, poses with taxidermied mice: one dressed as Hamlet (left), the other as the pope.

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From the ganges to gowanus: Full skeleton It’s India, about 80 years ago. The body of a recently deceased man, in his early 30s, is placed to drift away in the Ganges River. A ways down the river sat poachers, fishing nets at the ready. They pulled the fresh body from the water and sold it to American medical students. The skeleton came to the library a few years ago by an anonymous donor, whose wife was sick of having it in the house. Ebenstein carried it to the library in a sack on the subway. She had just happened to buy the container in which it’s displayed — an old, original Tiffany jewelry case — a week earlier. “You don’t get to be so close to a dead person,” head librarian Laetitia Barbier says.

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Chick in jaunty cap: anthropomorphic taxidermy A speciality of the library is its super-popular anthropomorphic taxidermy classes, where attendees put real dead animals in costumes, and mount them in human-like poses. The craft started in Victorian England after a show at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851 that showed foxes in poses from old folk tales. “They made a huge sensation. Queen Victoria wrote about it in her diary,” Ebenstein says.

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La belle inconnue death mask In the late 19th century, the Paris morgue exhibited unidentified bodies ostensibly so they could be recognized and claimed, but it turned into a huge tourist attraction. This particular woman was of note: She was dragged out of the Seine, her identity a mystery, and this death mask (a common memorial at the time) was made to capture her enchanting features. “This death mask was popular with bohemians and artists. They hung it in their homes,” Ebenstein says. “Part of the mystique was that she was so pretty, the not-knowing-who-she-was elusiveness, the beautiful, mysterious drowned woman with the Mona Lisa smile.”

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Snake-infused whiskey wine Clubgoers in Murray Hill chug Red Bull before a night out; real adventure seekers in the Philippines, however, take a few tugs off this liquor bottle, which contains a baby cobra and a goji berry. This isn’t some ancient find, either: It was a gift from someone who recently visited the Philippines, where you can still buy the potent potable. “I actually tasted it, and it’s rice alcohol,” Barbier says. “It’s not dead animal juice, but you don’t want to make your Saturday night party out of it.”