International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1934)

72 THE CINEMA IN TEACHING Then we have those motion pictures which consist partly of photographs and partly of drawings. In my opinion, it would be perfectly possible to abandon the photographic part of these combinations. I do not deny that the explanation of the movements of a needle in sewing up a wound is much more easily explained and rendered evident with an animated cartoon rather than with a photograph, but this only means that cinematogrephic technique has not risen to the height of its task, because there can be no doubt that the visual revelation of a good photograph and an animated cartoon are two very different things. I do not mean these remarks as a criticism of any recently projected pictures about which I shall have to make some observations later on. I think I am, up to now, the only professor of Clinical Surgery who has systematically introduced into the school the use of the cinema for teaching, and who has a three years experience of crowded halls like that of the Rome University, in which the teaching is obligatory for three years, with an average of 200 students per year. If I really wanted to fulfil my task as teacher, illustrating the technique of operations to more than 400 students at a time, with ordinary didactic means, I should not be able to do so. The facts have indeed borne this out. It is not possible today to imagine showing delicate surgical operations or even phases of them to more than 500 students, if only on account of the fact that the distance in itself would not allow a proper sight of what takes place or even an understanding of it. As often as not, in operations, it is only the surgeon's assistant who is able to see and follow thoroughly all the phases of the operation. The students cannot always do this. If, however, we place our motion picture camera close to the field of the operation and project the film so obtained, those 500 students will be able to see, follow and understand the intricacies of the operation just as well as the surgeon's assistant. There is another important factor in the case. During the actual operation, the surgeon can spare very little time to explain what he is doing, to point out the different organs of the body and the technique of the operation Generally he cannot do more than give a few hasty words of explanation which must certainly be incomplete. In the case of the filmed operation, nothing of this sort takes place. On the contrary, the professor's own words can illustrate the operation exhaustively, leading the student up to perfect understanding and grasp of what has been done. This form of explanation can now be given contemporaneously with the picture of the operation, thanks to the sound film. During a recent lecture tour in America, I took with me some films showing operations, and personal methods of technique. I was able to add a sound comment in English to some of the pictures, so that the illustration was both visual and oral. In my clinic, where I give six lessons a week, one of these is dedicated to the projection of a film which reproduces an operation on a man who has already undergone a previous operation that has been shown on the screen. I generally use fixed photographs to explain the nature of the operation, and show the part of the body concerned. Then I explain what the operation purposes to do in the particular case before us, again using stills or drawings. I then give the picture of the actual operation to minds which have already been prepared to understand it. My experience during the last three years has convinced me that this method of teaching is very valuable, and that there is nothing at present to take its place. Having thus shown and affirmed through experience the didactic importance of the surgical film, a large number of serious practical questions arise. Ought we to seek to create a repository of pictures by various authors, or is it more useful to have personal pictures at our disposal ? When the students are not very numerous, the question can be