Optography

Last updated
One of Wilhelm Kuhne's rabbit optograms from 1878. The window the rabbit was facing appears to be discernible in the image. Kuhne Rabbit optogram.jpg
One of Wilhelm Kühne's rabbit optograms from 1878. The window the rabbit was facing appears to be discernible in the image.

Optography is the process of viewing or retrieving an optogram, an image on the retina of the eye. A belief that the eye "recorded" the last image seen before death was widespread in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was a frequent plot device in fiction of the time, to the extent that police photographed the victims' eyes in several real-life murder investigations, in case the theory was true. The concept has been repeatedly debunked as a forensic method.

Contents

Scientific basis

Much of the scientific work on optography was performed by the German physiologist Wilhelm Kühne. Inspired by Franz Christian Boll's discovery of rhodopsin (or "visual purple")—a photosensitive pigment present in the rods of the retina—Kühne discovered that, under ideal circumstances, the rhodopsin could be "fixed" like a photographic negative. [1]

Kühne experimented on numerous animals to refine the process and determine the chemicals used to fix the image on the retina. His most successful optogram was obtained from an albino rabbit, with its head fastened to face a barred window. The rabbit's head was covered for several minutes to allow rhodopsin to accumulate on the retina. It was then uncovered for three minutes to expose it to the light, then decapitated and its eyeball sliced from top to bottom. The rear half of the eye was placed in an alum solution to enable fixation of the bleached rhodopsin, which resulted in a distinct image of the barred windows. [1]

Optography in the human eye

Line drawing by Wilhelm Kuhne of the only "human optogram", an image from the retina of executed prisoner Erhard Gustav Reif. Kuhne Reif human optogram drawing.jpg
Line drawing by Wilhelm Kühne of the only "human optogram", an image from the retina of executed prisoner Erhard Gustav Reif.

Kühne was eager to demonstrate the technique in a human subject, and in 1880, got the opportunity. On 16 November, Erhard Gustav Reif was executed by guillotine for the murder of his children in the nearby town of Bruchsal. Reif's eyes were extracted and delivered to Kühne's laboratory at the University of Heidelberg, where he set about dissecting them in a darkened room with filtered windows. After ten minutes, Kühne showed his colleagues an image on the left retina, but his sketch of the image did not appear to match any object visible to the subject at the time of his death—although the outline of the image resembled a guillotine blade, Reif was blindfolded at the time of his beheading. [2]

An issue that Kühne encountered when attempting to produce an image from a human eye is that the size of the fovea centralis, the actual focal point of the image on the retina, is very small (about 1.5 millimetres). Kühne had considerably more success producing optograms from animals such as rabbits and frogs, and the Reif image ended up being the only known "human optogram". [1] The original image from Reif's eye no longer exists, apart from a simple line drawing of the shape in Kühne's 1881 paper "Observations for Anatomy and Physiology of the Retina". [2]

Forensic optography

With the theory that the eye retained an image at the moment of death rampant in the Victorian imagination, police investigators in the late 1800s began considering optography as an investigative technique in murder cases. One of the earliest known attempts at forensic optography occurred in 1877, when Berlin police photographed the eyes of murder victim Frau von Sabatzky, on the chance that the image would assist in solving the crime. [2]

In 1888, London police officer Walter Dew—later known for catching the murderer Dr Crippen—recalled optography being attempted on Mary Jane Kelly in what he called a "forlorn hope" of catching her suspected killer, Jack the Ripper. [3] Ripperologist James Stewart-Gordon believed the technique was attempted on Annie Chapman as well. [4]

W.C. Ayres, an American physician who assisted Kühne in his laboratory and translated his papers into English, dismissed the theory that optography on a human eye could yield a usable image for forensic purposes. In an 1881 article in the New York Medical Journal, Ayres stated that his own repeated experiments in the field had produced some optogram images, but they were not distinct enough to be useful, and he declared it "utterly idle to look for the picture of a man's face, or of the surroundings, on the retina of a person who has met with a sudden death, even in the most favorable circumstances". [5]

A rare case of forensic optography being admitted as evidence occurred in late 1924, after German merchant Fritz Angerstein had been charged with killing eight members of his family and household staff. Doehne, a professor at the University of Cologne photographed the retinas of two of the victims, yielding what he claimed were images of Angerstein's face and an axe used to kill the gardener. Angerstein was tried, convicted and executed, with Doehne's optographic images included amongst other evidence in the case. According to the Sunday Express newspaper, when told of the "incriminating" optograms, Angerstein confessed to the murders. [1] The American Mercury magazine called Doehne's testimony "scientific confirmation" of the theory of optography, [6] although in 2011, the German Legal Tribune Online called the use of optographic evidence in the Angerstein case "absurde Kriminalistik" ("absurd forensics"). [7]

The most recent serious research into the use of optography in criminology occurred in 1975, when police in Heidelberg asked Evangelos Alexandridis at the University of Heidelberg to re-evaluate Kühne's experiments and findings with modern scientific techniques, knowledge and equipment. Like Kühne, Alexandridis successfully produced a number of distinct high-contrast images from the eyes of rabbits, but conclusively negatively assessed the technique as a forensic tool. [8]

Optography in fiction

The first apparent description of optography in fiction was in Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's 1867 short story "Claire Lenoir", later expanded into the novel Tribulat Bonhomet in 1887. Like the reference in Rudyard Kipling's 1891 short story "At the End of the Passage", Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's story portrays the optogram in a metaphysical sense, rather than scientific. [9]

Jules Verne's 1902 novel, Les Frères Kip (The Brothers Kip), contains a reference to optography as a key plot point. The Kip brothers of the title are arrested and imprisoned for the murder of a ship's captain. When the victim's son examines an enlarged photograph of his late father's head, he discerns in the eyes the faces of the true murderers—two of the captain's shipmates—and the brothers are exonerated. [10] Verne explained the scientific basis of the conclusion in the book's final chapter:

For some time now it has been known—as a result of various interesting ophthalmological experiments done by certain ingenious scientists, authoritative observers that they are—that the image of exterior objects imprinted upon the retina of the eye are conserved there indefinitely. The organ of vision contains a particular substance, retinal purple, on which is imprinted in their exact form these images. They have even been perfectly reconstituted when the eye, after death, is removed and soaked in an alum bath. [11]

In H.P. Lovecraft's short story "Out of the Aeons", the image of the Great Old One Ghatanothoa was kept on priest T'yog's retina after his death.

The 1936 Universal film The Invisible Ray features a scene in which Dr. Felix Benet (Bela Lugosi) uses an ultra-violet camera to photograph the dead eyes of Sir Francis Stevens (Walter Kingsford), who was murdered by Dr. Janos Rukh (Boris Karloff). The image developed by Benet shows Rukh to be the killer, but Benet drops the photographic plate, accidentally destroying the evidence.

Randall Garrett's 1964 fantasy story The Eyes Have It has an image magically developed from the retina of a corpse in a murder investigation. The image is said to be the result of the victim's visual system "backfiring" due to extreme shock, causing the picture in his mind to be returned to the retina.

Jim Morrison mentions Kuhne's experiments on rabbits in his text "Jim Morrison Raps" published in "Eye" magazine, October 1, 1968.

Italian film-maker Dario Argento's 1971 film Four Flies on Grey Velvet has characters use optography in an attempt to catch a murderer, with the description of the resulting image lending the film its title.

In the 1972 film Horror Express , various unearthly murders aboard a trans-Siberian train are investigated with a couple of autopsies, during which it is discovered that images are retained in a liquid found inside the eyeball of the corpse, which reveal a prehistoric Earth and a view of the planet seen from space and it is deduced that the threat is somehow a formless extraterrestrial that inhabited the body of the creature and now resides within a police inspector—the intelligence can "jump" from victim to victim via the eye—leaving the eyeball white and opaque (like that of a boiled fish.)

In the 1975 Doctor Who serial "The Ark in Space", the Fourth Doctor applies the theory with some of the ocular tissue of the alien Wirrn to project not just still images, but moving, video footage of the last moments of life of the Wirrn Queen thousands of years in the past. The Doctor likens it to an old Gypsy belief of the "eye retaining the last image after death", something not "too far from the truth". Thirty-eight years later, the 2013 Doctor Who episode "The Crimson Horror", set in Victorian England, portrays the character of Madame Vastra dismissing the validity of optography, until shown an image of the Eleventh Doctor in a dead man's eye. The image is explained as having registered after the victim was submerged in a chemical substance which caused his eyes to retain a latent image.

In the 1986 Manga Saint Seiya , there's an episode in which Ikki receives a warning from Black Cygnus' eye.

In the 1994 RoboCop: The Series , the first episode "The Future of Law Enforcement" Robocop takes a blurred image from a corpse's retina and then enhances it using a computer.

In Caleb Carr's 1994 book The Alienist optography is attempted, unsuccessfully, to identify a serial killer.

The 1999 film Wild Wild West features a scene where Artemis Gordon obtains a clue by projecting the optograms of a dead scientist on to a wall (much to the disgust of his colleague James West).

In 2007, the visual artist Derek Ogbourne created his 'Museum of Optography', after the trauma of being thumped in the eye a few years earlier. A series of art exhibitions that had at their central core the idea of ‘The Last Image’ bleached on to the retina at the moment of death. His museum consisted of 300 works, four catalogues and his Encyclopedia of Optography that imperceptibly blended historical fact with fiction.

In the 2008 series Fringe ("The Same Old Story", season 1 episode 2), Walter uses an optographic image taken from the optic nerve of a woman killed whilst under the effect of a paralytic toxin to track down and arrest her murderer.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retina</span> Part of the eye

The retina is the innermost, light-sensitive layer of tissue of the eye of most vertebrates and some molluscs. The optics of the eye create a focused two-dimensional image of the visual world on the retina, which then processes that image within the retina and sends nerve impulses along the optic nerve to the visual cortex to create visual perception. The retina serves a function which is in many ways analogous to that of the film or image sensor in a camera.

<i>Eyeball</i> (film) 1975 Italian film

Eyeball is a 1975 Italian giallo slasher film written and directed by Umberto Lenzi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of JonBenét Ramsey</span> Unsolved murder of an American child beauty queen

JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was an American child beauty queen who was killed at the age of six in her family's home at 755 15th Street in Boulder, Colorado. A long handwritten ransom note was found in the home. Her father, John, found the girl's body in the basement of their house about seven hours after she had been reported missing. She had sustained a broken skull from a blow to the head and had been strangled; a garrote was found tied around her neck. The autopsy report stated that JonBenét's official cause of death was "asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma". Her death was ruled a homicide. The case generated worldwide public and media interest, in part because her mother Patsy Ramsey, a former beauty queen, had entered JonBenét into a series of child beauty pageants. The crime is still considered a cold case and remains an open investigation with the Boulder Police Department.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Night vision</span> Ability to see in low light conditions

Night vision is the ability to see in low-light conditions, either naturally with scotopic vision or through a night-vision device. Night vision requires both sufficient spectral range and sufficient intensity range. Humans have poor night vision compared to many animals such as cats, dogs, foxes and rabbits, in part because the human eye lacks a tapetum lucidum, tissue behind the retina that reflects light back through the retina thus increasing the light available to the photoreceptors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vitreous body</span> Gel in eyeballs

The vitreous body is the clear gel that fills the space between the lens and the retina of the eyeball in humans and other vertebrates. It is often referred to as the vitreous humor, from Latin meaning liquid, or simply "the vitreous". Vitreous fluid or "liquid vitreous" is the liquid component of the vitreous gel, found after a vitreous detachment. It is not to be confused with the aqueous humor, the other fluid in the eye that is found between the cornea and lens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retinitis pigmentosa</span> Gradual retinal degeneration leading to progressive sight loss

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a genetic disorder of the eyes that causes loss of vision. Symptoms include trouble seeing at night and decreasing peripheral vision. As peripheral vision worsens, people may experience "tunnel vision". Complete blindness is uncommon. Onset of symptoms is generally gradual and often begins in childhood.

A retinal scan is a biometric technique that uses unique patterns on a person's retina blood vessels. It is not to be confused with other ocular-based technologies: iris recognition, commonly called an "iris scan", and eye vein verification that uses scleral veins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bates method</span> Ineffective alternative eyesight improvement therapy

The Bates method is an ineffective and potentially dangerous alternative therapy aimed at improving eyesight. Eye-care physician William Horatio Bates (1860–1931) held the erroneous belief that the extraocular muscles effected changes in focus and that "mental strain" caused abnormal action of these muscles; hence he believed that relieving such "strain" would cure defective vision. In 1952, optometry professor Elwin Marg wrote of Bates, "Most of his claims and almost all of his theories have been considered false by practically all visual scientists."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Lee (forensic scientist)</span> Chinese-born American forensic scientist

Henry Chang-Yu Lee is a Chinese-born American forensic scientist. He founded the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science, affiliated with the University of New Haven. In July 2023, a federal court found that Lee fabricated evidence that sent two teens to prison for 30 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fluorescein angiography</span> Technique for examining the circulation of the retina and choroid of the eye

Fluorescein angiography (FA), fluorescent angiography (FAG), or fundus fluorescein angiography (FFA) is a technique for examining the circulation of the retina and choroid using a fluorescent dye and a specialized camera. Sodium fluorescein is added into the systemic circulation, the retina is illuminated with blue light at a wavelength of 490 nanometers, and an angiogram is obtained by photographing the fluorescent green light that is emitted by the dye. The fluorescein is administered intravenously in intravenous fluorescein angiography (IVFA) and orally in oral fluorescein angiography (OFA). The test is a dye tracing method.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilhelm Kühne</span> German physiologist (1837–1900)

Wilhelm Friedrich Kühne was a German physiologist. He coined the word enzyme in 1878.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Albright</span> American killer from Dallas, Texas

Charles Frederick Albright was an American murderer and suspected serial killer who was convicted of murdering Shirley Williams, a sex worker whose body was found on a road in Dallas, Texas, in March 1991. Her eyes had been removed by her killer, leading to the media dubbing Albright the Eyeball Killer. He was also charged with the murders of three other women whose bodies were found in the Dallas area between 1988 and 1991. Charges were later dropped due to lack of evidence, although he is still considered the prime suspect. He was incarcerated in the John Montford Psychiatric Unit in Lubbock, Texas, until his death in 2020.

"Autopsy" is a television series of HBO's America Undercover documentary series. Dr. Michael Baden, a real-life forensic pathologist, is the primary analyst, and has been personally involved in many of the cases that are reviewed.

Cedric Keith Simpson was an English forensic pathologist. He was Professor of Forensic Medicine in the University of London at Guy's Hospital, Lecturer in Forensic Medicine at the University of Oxford and a founding member and President of the Association of Forensic Medicine. Simpson became renowned for his post-mortems on high-profile murder cases, including the 1949 Acid Bath Murders committed by John George Haigh and the murder of gangster George Cornell, who was shot dead by Ronnie Kray in 1966.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fundus photography</span> Medical imaging of the eyes

Fundus photography involves photographing the rear of an eye, also known as the fundus. Specialized fundus cameras consisting of an intricate microscope attached to a flash enabled camera are used in fundus photography. The main structures that can be visualized on a fundus photo are the central and peripheral retina, optic disc and macula. Fundus photography can be performed with colored filters, or with specialized dyes including fluorescein and indocyanine green.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forensic arts</span> Art used in law enforcement or legal proceedings

Forensic art is any art used in law enforcement or legal proceedings. Forensic art is used to assist law enforcement with the visual aspects of a case, often using witness descriptions and video footage.

Touch DNA, also known as Trace DNA, is a forensic method for analyzing DNA left at the scene of a crime. It is called "touch DNA" because it only requires very small samples, for example from the skin cells left on an object after it has been touched or casually handled, or from footprints. Touch DNA analysis only requires seven or eight cells from the outermost layer of human skin. The technique has been criticized for high rates of false positives due to contamination—for example, fingerprint brushes used by crime scene investigators can transfer trace amounts of skin cells from one surface to another, leading to inaccurate results. Because of the risk of false positives, it is more often used by the defense to help exclude a suspect rather than the prosecution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fritz Angerstein</span>

Fritz Heinrich Angerstein was a German mass murderer, who killed eight people at his home in Haiger, on December 1, 1924. The subject of a media spectacle, Angerstein, along with Fritz Haarmann and Peter Kürten, is considered one of the "three great mass murderer trials" of the Weimar Republic-era of Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eagle eye</span>

The eagle eye is among the sharpest in the animal kingdom, with an eyesight estimated at 4 to 8 times stronger than that of the average human. Although an eagle may only weigh 10 pounds (4.5 kg), its eyes are roughly the same size as those of a human. Eagle weight varies: a small eagle could weigh 700 grams (1.5 lb), while a larger one could weigh 6.5 kilograms (14 lb); an eagle of about 10 kilograms (22 lb) weight could have eyes as big as that of a human who weighs 200 pounds (91 kg). Although the size of the eagle eye is about the same as that of a human being, the back side shape of the eagle eye is flatter. Their eyes are stated to be larger in size than their brain, by weight. Color vision with resolution and clarity are the most prominent features of eagles' eyes, hence sharp-sighted people are sometimes referred to as "eagle-eyed". Eagles can identify five distinctly colored squirrels and locate their prey even if hidden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DNA phenotyping</span> DNA profiling technique

DNA phenotyping is the process of predicting an organism's phenotype using only genetic information collected from genotyping or DNA sequencing. This term, also known as molecular photofitting, is primarily used to refer to the prediction of a person's physical appearance and/or biogeographic ancestry for forensic purposes.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Ings, Simon (2007). The Eye: A Natural History . London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN   978-0-7475-9286-0.
  2. 1 2 3 Ogbourne, Derek: Optography and optograms, The College of Optometrists.
  3. Dew, Walter (1938). I Caught Crippen.
  4. Stewart-Gordon, James: "The Enduring Mystery of Jack the Ripper", Reader's Digest, June 1973.
  5. "Science Notes". South Australian Weekly Chronicle. Adelaide, SA: National Library of Australia. 9 July 1881. p. 16. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
  6. "Cablegram from Berlin", The American Mercury, September to December 1925.
  7. Rath, Martin: Belichtete Augen – absurde Kriminalistik, Legal Tribune Online, Wolters Kluwer Deutschland GmbH, 2011. (in German)
  8. Gerstmeyer, K. et al.: The last image. On the history of optography, European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons.
  9. Ogbourne, Derek (2008). Encyclopedia of Optography. Muswell Press. ISBN   978-0-9547959-4-8.
  10. Evans, Arthur B. (November 1993). "Optograms and Fiction: Photo in a Dead Man's Eye". Science Fiction Studies. 20 (61).
  11. Verne, Jules: Les Frères Kip, 1902.