By Maureen A. Taylor
Family photos might hold clues to your ancestors' medical history.
Health history clues might be staring you right in the face—in family photos showing evidence of conditions from hair loss to dental problems to warts. The devil is in the details, so scan photos at a high resolution and enlarge them on your computer screen, or use a photographer’s loupe to examine prints. Look at hands: Missing fingers can signify a farming or industrial accident. Lost limbs could indicate a worse accident or military service—before antibiotics, doctors would often pre-empt infection by amputating injured legs and arms. Here are other examples of visible medical problems.
A doctor might be able to help you identify medical problems in photos. You also can compare them to the images in
Mütter Museum Historic Medical Photographs edited by Laura Lindgren (Blast Books), a collection of pictures once used to educate doctors, from the College of Physicans of
Philadelphia Mütter Museum. Be forewarned—some images are graphic.
This photo of unidentified girls dates from the 1870s. Someone might have shorn their heads due to lice or illness (cutting hair was thought to preserve strength and reduce fevers). Alternatively, these girls could have a condition such as alopecia (spot baldness) or Norwegian woolly hair (tightly curled, brittle hair that breaks off).
Rachel McPherson’s grandmother, seated in the front row, wore a leg brace because of childhood polio, which caused a deformity in her left foot.
The growths on this young woman’s hand suggest a skin condition. Her other hand, hidden behind her back, is likely also affected.
Linda Merlino sent in this circa-1889 picture of a woman with swelling around her mouth. My dentist suggested she could have abscessed teeth, a pronounced jaw or a condition known as Angioneurotic edema (tissue swelling)—or she might be nursing a wad of chewing tobacco.
This unidentified man’s right eye is glass. He could have lost the eye in an accident, or because of an infection or a disease such as diabetes.
Judy Linnebach believes this photo shows a relative, about age 1 here, who died at 16 of interstitial nephritis (inflammation of the kidneys) with a secondary cause of congenital hydrocephalus (excess fluid around the brain).