The Morbidly Fascinating Page
This Month’s Subject:

Excerpts from the Dr. Ochi Collection

IN THE ARCHIVES:

Victorian Post-Mortem Photography
Flesh-Eating Bacteria
Mob Hits
Autopsy
Death Scenes
Circus Freaks
The Real Amityville Horror

Below are a few photographs taken from the book "Dr. Ikkaku Ochi Collection," edited by Akimitsu Naruyama.

Unfortunately, the photographs taken by Dr. Ochi (in approximately 1880-1900) were not labeled in this book, so we are unable to determine what particular diseases or deformaties these victims had.

AN EXCERPT FROM THE EXPLANATION INSIDE THE BOOK

You can find this book HERE

In an inconspicuous wooden box that had long gone unopened, Akimitsu Naruyama discovered 365 photographs of people with congenital and pathological deformations. After looking at just a few pictures, the Japanese art dealer and collector knew that he had discovered an extraordinary collection of photographs.

ABOUT DR. OCHI

A doctor and photography enthusiast, Ikkaku Ochi practiced his profession in Okayama, a prefecture of Shikoku, one of Japan's southern islands. He had his patients photographed during the last decade of the 19th century, producing images that are strikingly distinct from contemporary medical photographs, which serve as mere educational material and rarely as sensitive portraits of the diseased. Ochi's patients were recorded with dignity and respect, though the exposed, diseased parts of their bodies are explicitly documented and not for the squeamish. Individual photographs reveal the physical manifestations of syphilis in its final stages, elephantiasis of the testes or breasts, and other medical conditions--conditions that today are almost completely suppressed by medication or vaccination.