surgery – Medicine on Screen

A still of a black and white film shows a woman in a white coat working in a lab.

July 12, 2022February 1, 2023

Challenge: Science Against Cancer or How to Make a Movie in the Mid-Twentieth Century

By David Cantor, PhD Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social (IDES), Buenos Aires

In 1949 the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Canadian Department of National Health and Welfare (DNHW) commissioned a cancer educational film, eventually called Challenge: Science Against Cancer. It was to be one of the first of a new form of film. The urgent task was to induce young scientists to think of cancer research and biomedicine as careers, and Challenge was to be a key part of the response.

READ ESSAY | VIEW FILM

Anatomical illustration showing forceps around the head of a fetus.

July 16, 2019June 2, 2023

A Bit of Hollywood in the Operating Room

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.

READ ESSAY | VIEW FILM

March 4, 2016January 15, 2020

Erdheim’s Autopsy: Dissection, Motion Pictures, and the Politics of Health in “Red Vienna”

By Tatjana Buklijas, Birgit Nemec, and Katrin Pilz

Sometime in the last century a fragment of silent film landed at the National Library of Medicine. Like many of the older films in the collection, how it got there is a mystery: no paperwork survives to tell the tale; no other prints of the film appear to have survived; no other sources on its making or showing have turned up.

READ ESSAY | VIEW FILM

NEW IN NLM DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Journey into Self (1968)

This is a filming of the first session of an intensive basic encounter group led by Dr. Carl Rogers, widely known for developing a client-centered approach to psychotherapy and as a founder of humanistic psychology, and Dr. Richard Farson, a founder of the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute. The session features eight previously-unacquainted persons from different regions of the United States, participating in a loosely structured, conversational “encounter,” a form of group therapy.