Draculean anatomy section? Purple people eaters and general sixties pop wizards section?
That stuff is very strong sulphuric acid dyed purple to identify it and to enable spills to be easily seen.
Strong solutions of caustic soda can also be used, which does a better job of leaving the bones intact, as can a genuinely purple solution of potassium permangante, which is a very powerful oxidant used in fireworks and other explosives, and in very weak solutions for sterilising fruit and vegetables and for removing the last traces of fixer from photographic prints for archival permanence, as well as in more normal concentrations for various redox reactions in analytical chemistry, of which I was a purple stained white coated practitioner on my lousier days and a non purple stained one on my better days.
Potassium permanaganate is very handy stuff to have around.
Scroll down to see it's poetic beauty in very weak solutions
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_permanganate . . . . .
Here is an acid murder case which makes good research material.... see the delightfully cool Mr Haigh of Don't be Vague ask for Haigh fame...(O no, that was our Prime Minister of years ago, Dopey Haigh, flannelling twit) .... and note the bits that remained....good for incorporating into a story.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/717344.html . . . . .
You can also use dry lime powder to bury the body in or do as a demonstrator did in a cosmetics lab I worked in and liquidise the entire body in twenty gallons of water.
Actually he used a whole large sheep, still woolly when it went in and a fine smooth non-gritty cream when it was poured out again ten minutes later.
Cosmetics liquidisers get really creamy and smooth........Hmmmmm, feel that creamy luxury......
Homogenisers they're called...a 10HP one will do nicely....and of course sheep flavoured hair spray and ice cream is a natural by-product of the process....or camel, or err...hu....perhaps not.
http://www.industrie.seibt.com/industry/homogenizers-for-the-cosmetics-industry.html . . . .
http://www.chinahomogenizers.com/ . . . . .
Africa has been beautiful for me but never a nightmare.
I just stayed away from the Mao-Mao and did a rain dance instead of sweating for hours digging a trench to get water to the Ngalikuma desert camp.
It worked. Two months later they got rain and I am now Rain King of Sweet Water and get fourteen beautiful rain princesses to choose... from hundreds of dancing damsels in little grass skirts.
Heart attack time....I left....urgent welfare call....well, it was true wasn't it?