was a Japanese physician, pathologist and

Emeritus Professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Nippon Medical School is a private university in Sendagi (), Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan. History In 1876, Tai Hasegawa () established a medical school in Tokyo. At that time, the Japanese government and the Ministry of Education only permitted one medical school: the Un ...

in Tokyo. He was the founder or nite of the world's only known collection of

tattoo A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing ...

s taken from the dead. Fukushi Masaichi and his son Fukushi Katsunari are known in Japan as .

Life

Fukushi Masaichi studied at the Tokyo Imperial University Medicine. After studying in Germany, he began in 1914 at the Medical college Kanazawa University Kanazawa. He was chairman of the . The focus of his research was initially that syphilis caused

aortitis Aortitis is the inflammation of the aortic wall. The disorder is potentially life-threatening and rare. It is reported that there are only 1–3 new cases of aortitis per year per million people in the United States and Europe. Aortitis is most com ...

and thyroid disease. He became interested in tattoos when he noticed that the tattoo ink in the skin killed the skin lesions of syphilis. Fukushi Masaichi himself was not tattooed. His research on the subject of human skin (from 1907) brought him into contact with many people that had tattoos. He therefore became interested in 1926 in the art of Japanese tattoo (Irezumi), led autopsies on corpses, removed the skin and did research on methods to preserve the skin. In the following years he collected an archive of about 2000 "hides" and 3000 photographs which were lost in 1945, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Masaichi put some of his unique collection of tattooed hides and groomed skin that had been outsourced in the early 1940s in an air raid shelter. Since they were protected from the effects of war they survived the bombings. These skins are all that remains of his collection.

References

Bibliography

* - Total pages: 240 * - Total pages: 95 * * - Total pages: 271 {{DEFAULTSORT:Masaichi, Fukushi Japanese pathologists 1878 births 1956 deaths People from Yamaguchi Prefecture Tattooing