The mask of the Elephant Man
Introduction
The photograph on this page of The mask of the Elephant Man by Natasha Ceridwen de Chroustchoff as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
The mask of the Elephant Man
Image: © Natasha Ceridwen de Chroustchoff Taken: 13 Mar 2009
The museum of The London Hospital preserves this relic of its most famous 'patient' Joseph Merrick, rescued by the surgeon Frederick Treves (1853-1953) from a life as a side-show spectacle and taken to live in the comfort of the hospital (although it may be the case that Treves did not do Merrick any favours, removing him from an independent, self-sufficient lifestyle to that of a helpless dependent.) Merrick suffered from a disfiguring condition known as Proteus syndrome and wore the mask to cover his facial deformity in public.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.518849
Longitude
-0.057693