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THE CINEMA IN EDUCATION
PUBLIC HYGIENE AND THE CINEMA
BY
Laura Dreyfus-Barney,
President of the Cinema and Radio Commission of the International Council of Women.
I shall endeavour in this report to show the relationship existing between the cinema and public hygiene, and what it is necessary to do to permit the motion picture to carry out in this field better and better work.
Hygiene in Cinema If we consider that at Halls, Safety, etc. tne en(j 0f 1930 there
were in Europe about 1 5 million seats for the public in cinema halls and about eight million in America, that in far off countries like Japan and Australia there were at that time between 1 500 and 1 800 picture houses, we can see at once the importance of the question of hygiene, inspection and upkeep of such halls for the public health. It is also easy to perceive how and why motion pictures can cause injury or fatigue to children's delicate sight.
Each of these points was debated during our lecture in Rome and was followed by an exchange of interesting information regarding what was being done thereon in various countries.
There is no doubt that the big cinematograph halls arouse less serious anxiety in the matter of hygiene. Built specially for this purpose, they follow all the lines of modern progress in such matters as air ventilation, while a number in Italy are fitted with sliding roofs. The case is different when we come to look at the small provincial cinemas. They often consist of buildings hurriedly converted into picture halls and require special precautions to be taken to safeguard hygiene. At Perth, in Australia, for example, the cinemas
are cleaned after every performance, while in Japan the exhibitor is obliged to leave the hall empty for ten minutes after every performance, at the same time leaving all the exits open.
Measures of this kind ought to be enforced everywhere and made strictly obligatory.
In the matter of fire, safety measures and proper precautions are insisted on by law everywhere, but the great risk that comes from the celluloid film which heats quickly has not yet been eliminated. Governments try in vain to spread the use of noninflammable film, which has been adopted in general for educational and popular instruction pictures.
Eye fatigue depends chiefly on the use of worn out and damaged film, on too rapid projection, or on illegible sub-titles or a bad seat in the theatre.
Social Hygiene. In all the countries of
the world, progress in social hygiene has been made, thanks to the influence of the cinema. As a matter of fact, social hygiene, which is the science of preventing diseases and abbreviating their duration, ought to be available for all, and the dictates of this science ought to be spread among the masses with the most potent and efficacious means existing — namely the motion picture. The percentage of visuals is about 80 per cent, and it would be possible to project propaganda films on the principles and elementary notions of medicine, on the best means for spreading a knowledge of them, and impressing them on the minds of the spectators.