Medical anomalies, human conditions

In a photograph taken at a Shanghai hospital in 1894, Yu Yung Lan appears pregnant. Her belly curves outward in the familiar oblong curve of expecting mothers, but hers is nearly six feet in circumference, overbearing her body, and stretching her skin to its limit. Yu suffered from an abnormally large ovarian tumor, one that weighed 182 pounds. Images of Yu and other patients suffering from abnormal medical conditions in the nineteenth century appear in Mütter Museum: Historic Medical Photographs, released in November. The book organizes the previously unorganized photograph collection of Philadelphia's Mütter Museum into medical categories such as amputation, dermatological disorders and paralysis. The book, like the museum, is not intended as a printed form of a circus side show, but a demonstration of the humanity inherent in these and all medical cases. The wry smile of Jennie Savage lying in a hospital cot in 1899...