Creepy Photos Reveal A Different Side History

Duchenne de Boulogne using electrical probes to stimulate the facial muscles, 1862.

Here we have a "demonstration of the mechanics of facial expression." French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne, who is widely known advancing the science of electrophysiology. Duchenne decided he wanted to figure out how the muscles in the human face made facial expressions (which he believed were directly linked to the soul). As can be seen in this photo, he experimented by triggered muscular contractions with electrical probes, then photographed the distorted and often grotesque expressions that resulted.

He published his findings with the photographs in 1862, in the book Mecanisme de la physionomie Humaine (The Mechanism of Human Facial Expression, also known as The Mechanism of Human Physiognomy).