The “daily press” tells us that the medical profession is the latest
convert to the cinematograph as an aid to instruction. The instrument
is being utilized to record operations, for presentation before medical
students, and in this manner a large number of unnecessary operations
will be prevented. It is maintained that many intricate and delicate
operations can be more lucidly expounded to the student by these
biographic demonstrations than is possible in the operating theatre,
during the carrying out of an operation, or by means of anatomic
diagrams.
Processes of bone-grafting have been thrown upon the screen. Serial
radiographs of the stomach showing all the stages of digestion
have been revealed to an audience of surgeons. One professor of
neurology uses twenty-five thousand feet of cinema film in teaching
and illustrating nervous and mental diseases. Even the blood has
not escaped the cinema-worker’s relentless probing. By means of the
ultra-micro-cinematograph the corpuscles of the blood are magnified
to an enormous degree and one is able to follow with ease precisely
what happens when the vital fluid is contaminated by different foreign
organisms, and the terrific struggle that ensues for supremacy, and
the exact action produced by the administration of various curative
specifics. It is evident that, in the battle against human disease and
death, the moving picture is destined to play an astonishing part.
The Great War has provided some interesting surgical opportunities,
which, had they been witnessed by those other than medical students,
would have been gruesome and revolting, yet are interesting to the
strong-nerved who can withstand the odour of the warm blood of human
life. Take the case of a soldier shot in the thigh by machine-gun
bullets which have made the head of the femur resemble a sand sieve;
watch the film, from the carrying of the patient from the ward to the
theatre, the administration of the anæsthetic, and the deep-chested
breathing of the patient who gradually succumbs to the sweet pungent
odour; note the interested audience of white-robed sisters, nurses
and surgeons; the well-placed incision, the parting of the sinews and
muscles, and the removal of the head of the “femur” to be replaced
later by an exact replica in silver.
In medical science the cinematograph should become a most important aid
in the instruction of students.