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.
III
LIBRARIES AND LITERATURE
School, Library, and Cinema.
What a force to be reckoned with would be the combined efforts of school, library and cinema as factors in education. These two former sections have become more united during the last few years. It is only recently that the activities of the Public Library Authorities have been fully appreciated by the Education Authorities. The outlook is now brighter, and a recognized harmony exists; their efforts now being united for the furtherance of educational ideals.
All educational aims should be to broaden, deepen, improve and strengthen the childish imagination, both sympathetic and intellectual. If used without proper supervision, there is not a more harmful agency than the cinema.
Mention is made elsewhere of the Cinema Commission, the London County Council, and the Birmingham Education Committee and what they are undertaking on behalf of the school.