International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1934)

IN THE PREVENTION AND PROPHYLACTICS OF DISEASE 787 can safely be avoided by the exercise of an education in the principles of hygiene, since if we know the origin and the mechanism of their incidence in men, it is easy to avoid the risk of infection. In the case of vocational diseases, it is only too often the case that the inception of the malady depends on the workers' ignorance, excessive confidence, or carelessness of danger which prevents them from taking the proper precautionary measures of defence. An example will illustrate what we mean. In the case of vocational saturnism or lead poisoning, we have a magnificent opportunity for instructing the mass of workers engaged in this dangerous trade on the perils of lead poisoning. Cinema lessons could show them the proper way to carry out their various operations, the precautions that should be taken, typical cases of lead poisoning, with an exposition of the symptoms, the cures and all the methods and systems for avoiding risk. Attendance at such lessons should be made obligatory for lead workers and all those who through their vocational exercises run the risk of getting lead poisoning. As regards infectious diseases, the motion picture should be widely used, not only in elementary and secondary schools, but also in universities, to explain mechanical ideas and processes in their practical applications. There is no need here to go into the matter of the various characteristics of educational cinematography as practised for various classes and ages and the best means of carrying out motion picture lessons. It may be said in general that a well ordered, clear, truthful and fundamental exposition based on examples from life should be the type of projection aimed at in lessons given for instructing persons in prophylactic measures against infectious and vocational diseases and disorders. It will always be best in projecting pictures of this kind to follow a logical and invariable system of distribution of the material, a kind of fixed plan or plot to carry the various points and scenes of the exposition and demonstration. This is not difficult since the special prophylaxis of infectious diseases is based on a constant sequence of facts common for all cases and persons. In view of the fact that infectious diseases are transmitted from the sick to the healthy person directly or through the medium of materials objects or vectors, the successive problems are constantly the following ones: in what manner does the sick person, or the disease-carrier prove dangerous to the healthy individual, what ways and vectors of approach are open for facilitating the increment of disease? It is on a framework of similar inquiries that the whole mechanism of the most dangerous infectious diseases can be examined from the prophylactic point of view and the necessary precautions and remedies excogitated. A good example of the treatment and precautions that can be used for avoiding infectious maladies by the public is the treatment and prophylaxis of typhoid fever, which still claims far too many victims. If we are to overthrow this disease and complete the attacks that have been made on it in medical and hygienic quarters, there must be a great campaign of propaganda among the public. This propaganda should chiefly be undertaken, or, at any rate, should have its central foci in the elementary and secondary schools, in workmen's spare time and leisure associations and clubs, and in women's organization of various kinds. The motion picture should be the means used for explanation, illustration and demonstration. It is a surer and better means than lectures, and can reach lower classes of society, since it is more immediately attractive in its appeal and easily grasped. The public should be taught how the germ of typhoid is developed and spread, how it penetrates into the healthy human organism, how man can be defended from it both individually and socially. The great benefits deriving from cleanliness of the hands, from boiling milk, from washing vegetables, from a careful choice of foodstuffs, from keeping flies away from eat