Warning: The film contains explicit images of disease and intrusive medical treatment. Viewer discretion advised.

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DATE: 1931

LENGTH: 12 min

CATEGORY: Clinical & Surgical, Research & Documentation, Silent, Black & White

PRODUCER/PUBLISHER: School of Tropical Medicine [Hochschule für Tropenmedizin], Hamburg, Germany

Summary

This silent German-language medical film from the early 1930s offers a window into a major medical debate in the interwar period: Should the era of leprosy segregation come to an end?

Manifestations of leprosy from early to developed stages are shown in this silent film. Patients pose before the camera, matched to intertitles in German that classify the various manifestations of the disease, and demonstrate nerve damage, skin damage, loss of extremities, blindness, and other conditions caused by the leprosy bacillus. A portion of the film is devoted to treatment. Patients are shown receiving injections, washing, and exercising. The camera also shows the grounds of the Albert Victoria Hospital and its chaulmoogra trees, which grow nuts that are harvested to make an oil which was then the only recognized medical treatment available….Read The Essay

Supplementary Materials

Books and Pamphlets at the National Library of Medicine

Cover of a pamphlet from the British Empire Leprosy Relief Association, Indian Council.
Leprosy Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention By Ernest Muir, ca. 1926
National Library of Medicine #25960700R
A page spread showing the start of Chapter 2: Treatment, and an illustration of chemical aparatus.
National Library of Medicine #25960700R
Page spread showing a bar graph and the titlepage of a published lecture.
The Leper Problem in India, 1922
A bar graph shows the estimated number of lepers in India in 1920 as 150,000 and an increase of lepers in asylums between 1920 and 1921 as only 40 for a total of 8890. On the opposite leaf the titlepage for Lecture on “The leper Problem in India and The Treatment of leprosy.” By Frank Oldrieve. Delivered before the East India Association on October the 24th, 1921.
National Library of Medicine #101606763
Two sets of drawings of patients before and after treatment.
Plate from Handbook on Leprosy; Its Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention, 1921
These and other before and after treatment illustrations are provided to demonstrate the efficacy of the treatments described in the text.
National Library of Medicine #34821410R
An open book with botanical illustrations and a title page dated 1921.
Handbook on Leprosy; Its Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention, 1921
This book by Ernest Muir contains many photographs illustrating diagnosis, treatment, and settlement and was written for health workers, general practitioners and administrators, particularly in India. The frontispiece shows The botany of the chaulmoogra plant.
National Library of Medicine #34821410R
Cover of a pamphlet issued by the Mission to Lepers, 1922.
The Leper Problem in India, 1922
By Ernest Muir and others, 1922
National Library of Medicine #101606763
An open book showing a case-taking chart example with body outlines and a foldout plan for a model leper settlement.
Handbook on Leprosy; Its Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention, 1921
This fold-out diagram provides a plan for a model leper settlement. Isolation is discussed as an important factor in dealing with leprosy in a community.
National Library of Medicine #34821410R
A title page for a League of Nations report dated 1930.
Report on the Study Tour of the Secretary of the Leprosy Commission in Europe, South America and the Far East: January 1929-June 1930
Published by the League of Nations. Leprosy Commission, Geneva, 1930
National Library of Medicine #8007691
A half-tone reproduction of a photograph of glassware and tubes for a chemical process.
Fig. 7 in Leprosy; Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention by Ernest Muir, ca. 1926.
Preparing the Hydnocarpus Oil Injection Treatment. Preparation of esters from oils. To the right a mixture of oil, alcohol and acid are being boiled over a water-bath; reflux condenser above. In the middle the esters are being washed in a separating funnel. The upper layer is the esters and the lower is water. To the left a bottle has been adapted as a separating funnel. Such a bottle should be used for preparing the esters by the cold process.
National Library of Medicine #25960700R
An illustration showing many small red worm-like things in groups and singly.
“Lepra Bacilli” in Handbook on Leprosy; Its Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention, 1921
This plate illustrates the microscopic view of a smear from under the surface of a leprous nodule. “Stained by Ziehl-Neelsen’s method. Note large bundles of bacilli, also granular, partly-stained appearance of some of the bacilli.”
National Library of Medicine #34821410R

Other materials from the National Library of Medicine

Portrait of a man in a suit and glasses.
Ernest Muir (1880–1974)
British Medical Journal 5941 (Nov. 16, 1974): 413.
Formal photographic portrait of an older Bernhard Nocht in a suit.
Bernhard Nocht (1857–1945)
National Library of Medicine #101424599

Digitized Films on Tropical Disease at the National Library of Medicine

A films still of the title frame for Tropical Disease Investigations in Africa.Explore tropical disease films in the NLM Digital Collections

Learn more about NLM holdings of tropical disease films in the Guide to Tropical Disease Motion Pictures and Audiovisuals

More Medicine on Screen

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