Tweemaal een onbekende man met psoriasis before 1889

This is an image of an open book, "Tweemaal een onbekende man met psoriasis", or "Twice an unknown man with psoriasis", it was produced at an unknown date by an anonymous artist. This image can tell us a lot about the history of medicine and the representation of the body, particularly the medical gaze. Consider the institutional context of this image: it was most likely produced in Europe in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, a time when medical photography was emerging as a tool for diagnosis and documentation. Note the anonymity of the subject, stripped of identity and reduced to a medical specimen, reflecting prevailing attitudes towards illness and disability. For the historian, this image is a rich source of information. By researching the history of dermatology and the development of medical photography, we can better understand the social and cultural context in which this image was produced and the attitudes towards health and disease that it reflects.