Japanese physician and pathologist Fukushi Masaichi collected tattooed skin from the dead during the early 20th century. Masaichi first became interested in tattoos when he noticed that the tattoo ink in the skin killed the skin lesions of syphilis. This led him in 1926 to study the art of Japanese tattoo (Irezumi). He would lead autopsies on corpses, removing the skin and conducting research on methods to preserve the skin. In the following years he collected an archive of about 2000 “hides”. M