The annals of the American academy of political and social science (Nov 1926)

140 The Annals of the American Academy satisfying results obtained by employing the motion picture film as a method of educating medical students. I, myself, have been able to conceive and produce about 55,000 feet (nearly eleven miles) of motion picture film portraying most vividly every known variety of intestinal and rectal disease that can be showTi in pictures. Cases are shown, instruments demonstrated and every modern method of treatment is shown by means of moving pictures. Any and all surgical operations are capable of being shoAvn by this means. Not only are actual pictures of the operation employed, but by the use of animated diagrams, the most intricate procedure and operation may be shown in great detail, and in a manner whose clearness is not possible of obtainment by any other method. By means of an invention of my own, motion pictures of the interior of certain portions of the intestinal tract have been taken and may be studied. By this I do not mean X-ray pictures, since they are only shadows cast by opaque material in the intestine, but I mean actual pictures taken in the inside of the intestine. This has never been done heretofore, and furnishes the medical profession with a new means of observing the intestines, both in health and in disease. The dissection of an entire human body — a tedious process taking months of careful work — is shown in faithful detail in my motion pictures in a little over one hour. Moreover, without the necessity of again going through the dissection, the process may be repeatedly shown until the student is entirely familiar with its detail. In this way from the seat of a comfortable chair in the lecture hall he may learn what otherwise would require months of messy work on a malodorous cadaver. Thus through the agency of motion pictures, the anatomy and physiology of the body in health, the characteristic appearance of cases of disease, and each step in the plan of its treatment may be presented. If a student is slow to grasp, the pictures may be run twice or more times. If an interesting phase is observed the picture may be stopped and started again as soon as it has been sufficiently observed. Finally, in this series of pictures there are to be observed all the interesting intestinal and rectal cases that have come through Bellevue Hospital in the last nine years. Where else can a nineyear clinic such as this be viewed in a httle over an hour.'' This is all the more remarkable considering the fact that the very patients portrayed have almost all passed from view either by reason of cure, removal or demise. Aside from the immense economy of time and effort, the particular features by reason of which the employment of motion picture film is most especially adapted to the teaching of medical subjects, are its ready accessibility and its permanency of form. To this we may add the fact that it is a practically indestructible record which may be used time and time again without any more exertion than the printing of new positives from the original negatives. Availability is a very important feature in the teaching of medical subjects. For instance, a physician recently dropped into my clinic at the Bellevue Hospital Medical College and said that he was particularly interested in a certain rare form of rectal disease and wanted to see whatever could be seen on that subject. As it happened, the condition was of such rarity that there were no cases in the hospital at that particular time and for that matter had not been for over a year. Yet by the simple process of the motion picture