The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1909-10-08
TO AID IN SURGERY
Moving Pictures Latest lnnova.
ton in Study of Physical Ills.
Planned to Furnish Films Of Rare and
Difficult Surgical Operations Is
Medical Associations Of
Country.

Chicago.-The invasion of the NOV
ing-picture camera has given the edu-
cational world a great impetus. 1t ia
now proposed to furnish films of rare
and difficult surgical operations and
the treatment of different diseases to
the county medical associations
throughout the country. For some
time DR.. L. Blake Baldwin, the city
physician, has been experimenting. In
collaboration with a local company,
at their laboratories, and films have
been made which in their continuity
OF exposure show the growth of
germs in such a name that a physi-
clan in some crossroads town may
now study them IS carefully in his
home village Is he could If he had
the time and money to spend weeks Of
study in some foreign city.
DR.. L. Blake Baldwin's first work
along this line was in the study of
locomotor ataxia and paralysis agj-
tans, by lei of moving picture
peculiar to them, as well as hemi-
plegia and Huntington's chorea. Each
day, during the treatment, a patient
was made to go through the same *
ercises and moving pictures were
taken of the progress of the disease
or of the cure. as the case might be.
and shortly the films will be ready to
send broadcast for the benefit of the
medical fraternity as we'll as for the
education Of the public. Films are
now being produced by the Selig
Polyscope Company showing the
causes, the symptoms and the cure
for the white plague, and doubtless
some night when you part with five
cents to visit a moving-picture show.
instead of seeing a train hold-up or
comedy, you will learn how to avoid
consumption or how to cure it and
will go home with more real informa-
ton on the subject than o could
otherwise have gained.
In connection with the taking of
regular moving pictures, William
Selig has harnessed a powerful micro
scope to the moving-picture camera
and in collaboration with DR.. Victor
d. Lespinasse has been making films
bacilli. the Asiatic cholera vibrio and
the incubation and growth of germs
in culture media. BY means of a
device on the camera, regulated by
clockwork, the moving-picture Gamers
makes only n picture each hour,
showing the growth of the culture,
and by this means a film can be
shown on the screen in five or ten
minutes that may have taken months
to photograph.
1t is not practicable. in study, for
than a few people at a time to
observe carefully growths such as
these. while hundreds of physicians
cannot only see the film at the same
time but see the details much more
plainly. A microscope will show the
movement of typhoid bacilli magnified
to about $40 diameters on the moving.
picture film, and each of these little
pictures, about an inch square. will
be enlarged to about fifteen feet on
the screen where it is viewed.
In surgery the moving pictures will
present to physicians everywhere the
rare and difficult operations which
very few could otherwise witness, and
with the new advances which are be.
ing made in film color photography
they may soon be able to show in
color replica, craniotomy for brain
tumor, the growth and cure of cancer
of the a%esophagus, or the extremely
rare pneumotomy Gan operation on
the lungs by mean of a Sauerbruch
chamber).