The Opelousas courier., 1900-02-17
BIOGRAPH IN MEDICINE.
NEW AID FOR DOCTORS IN STUDYING
OBSCURE DISEASES.
Operations Performed by Famous Surgeons
Also Shown by the kaleidoscope The
Instrument f1arnessed to the Telea
scope and the Microscope"
New Results Obtained.

lures are becoming useful for scientific
as well as for amusement purposes. In
hospitals, particularly, the invention is
finding application, declares the New
York Sun. One hospital in New York
is now adapting a. machine to record
infinitely the factions Of patients in cpl
leptic fits and similar affections, and
many moving pictures have been taken
showing the movements in walking of
persons afflicted from locomotor
ataxia. Reproduced slowly, on the
screen, doctors are enabled to study
the symptoms more carefully in their
laboratories. And the pictures taken
in Vienna, showing operations being
performed by famous surgeons, become
valuable instructors to medical stu
dents. 1t is also in hospital work that
this invention with the microscope at
tachment, or micro-kinetoscope, is
finding the greatest practical use. The
movement of all kinds Of microbes
when thus photographed make strik-
ing animated pictures, and the actions
of healthy and diseased corpuscles are
easily distinguished when thrown upon
the screen and magnifed thousands Of
times. Such pictures Of diseased
blood, taken from time to time, show
the improvement or decline in the con
.dition of patients.
1t has just been found by n ex-
pertinent that X-ray photography, now
so valuable in. hospitals, may. be won
derfully developed by the use Of the
biograph camera, as it is equally posi-
BILE to take moving pictures with the
penetrating light. He believes there is
no function of the human body which
may not be shown in action by such
pictures, even to the beating of the
heart and blood circulation.
Many of the animated pictures that
are exhibited now for their beauty
alone, will likely be useful in school
instruction and lecture work, but the
difficulty, SO far, as was the case with
the early development of the phono-
graph, is that these machines are held
ut high prices, and will only be
brought within the reach of public in
structors as their possibilities and i'm
provements bring great demand for
them.
One OF the novel subjects that will
soon be put ON exhibition will show
infinitely the growth and Towering of
plants from the time Of planting until
In full bloom. To obtain such results
as these a special room is set aside in
the new Botanical Gardens at Bronx
Park. In order to show the entire
growth of a lily ON the screen in one
series, the biograph cameras and the
growing bulb will be arranged in posi-
ton in this room and a picture will be
taken every half hour continually for
about thirty days and nights. In or,
der to get a uniform light for every
| view, artificial illumination will be
Employed. Something like a thousand
pictures viii be made of one subject,
| the final picture showing the opening
of the lily, and then its fading away.
Though such results have previously
| been obtained, they were not taken
| with the necessary uniformity of light
This work will be under the direction
of T. S. McGregor, curator of the gar
dens. Experiments of this kind, too
are being made to show rapidly the
| changes in scenery from winter tc
summer, etc.
The experiments of F~lammarion, the
celebrated French astronomer, show
the possibilities of the biograph for re
cording astronomical wonders. Ht
has taken moving pictures which show
moonrise, the Milky Way, lightning
shooting stars, sunrise and sunset
Professors of astronomy in Columbia
College also realize the possibilities OF
the invention in their work and exper
dmenters are improving extremely sen
sitive films necessary to take impress
sions of the weak astronomical ray
| of light. It is particularly the phe
nomena of the heavens seen at inter
walls Of many years-a strange eclipse
transit, or meteoric shower-whicl
men travel far to observe, and which
astronomers hope to observe in photo
graphic effects, making it possible TO
those at home to observe the heavenl.
wonders that few now have the op
portunity Of seeing.
And as the microscope has beef
combined with the biograph, so ais
the astronomers telescope lenses ar
being combined, so that we may Sc
distant movements invisible to tn
naked eye. Many of the moving pic
lures OF naval actions, which natural
1wY could not have been taken at clos
range, have resulted from the tele
scopic attachment.
Captain John Finley, an expert o.
tornadoes, now in the American mete
geological service, has taken some re
markable moving pictures Of lightnin
storms, and expects to get some pic
lures OF the approach of q Kansas tol
nado.
Another new and novel exhibit is
brilliant display OF fireworks, take
at night. While 1t has hitherto bee
impossible to photograph fireworks, b
the use Of magnesium powder the bic
graph has faithfully recorded til
shower and pinwheel effects Of tn
most costly pieces made.
] An adventurous operator in Europ
devised the idea of taking picture
from the bottom Of the a of d ba
] loon in motion. AS it assembled rapid
successive pictures were taken straigh
: downward showing the spectator
] then the surrounding houses and tree
then roofs and country, fading rapid
until all that could be seen were dar
ra4ohn~ N fha earth