Childbirth – Medicine on Screen

By Caitjan Gainty, PhD

Dr. Joseph DeLee’s obstetrical training films were made to instruct those less experienced and demonstrate to the medical profession that obstetricians were every bit the consummate professionals.

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The Films of Telford Work, by Dwight Swanson

“He trudged everywhere loaded with a tripod and 16mm Bolex cameras, documenting epidemiological events as they unfolded ‘as a journalist does in a notebook’.” These evocative words by Dr. Telford Work’s research partner and wife, Martine Jozan, allow the mind’s eye to imagine Dr. Work’s devotion both to science and to the craft of filmmaking. The National Library of Medicine is home to 83 films created by virologist Telford H. Work documenting his life’s work and travels. The films supplement Work’s manuscript collection, which covers his education, career, hobbies, and achievements. Captured between 1942 and 1988, the films were primarily shot on 16mm film, with video copies made later. Although some of Work’s California wildlife films were donated to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Work’s widow Martine Jozan, MD, Ph.D. (also a virologist) donated the vast majority of the material to the NLM in a series of gifts between 1999 and 2006. His film Reconnaissance for Yellow Fever in the Nuba Mountains, Southern Sudan was previously the subject of a “Medicine on Screen” essay by Paul Theerman.

NEW IN NLM DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Happy Families (1968)
Set in Singapore, this film dramatically presents the personal, family, and national implications of too many pregnancies and too many children born. One woman dies after a botched abortion and another takes her own life, both unable to cope with an additional pregnancy when multiple children already need care at home. Another mother whose children are grown lives a lonely life, having neglected her marital relationship in order to raise a large number of children. These situations are contrasted with calm, contented families that have only two or three children, well-spaced. The biggest family of all is "the state," which cannot succeed in providing jobs, education, and housing for its people if stressed by overpopulation. Learn more about the collection on Circulating Now.

All articles filed in Childbirth

A Bit of Hollywood in the Operating Room