Feature: A moving sight
6 November 2009
The black-and-white film begins with a caption explaining that you're about to watch an operation to remove a brain tumour. Next comes an X-ray, clearly showing a dark area at the front of the patient's head. Then the operation begins.
The eight minutes that follow are fascinating, unflinching and, it has to be said, pretty hard to stomach in places, particularly when the top of the skull is opened up. The Prefrontal Tuberculoma film, made in Britain in 1933, is the most viewed video on the Wellcome Film YouTube channel.
This channel is one way to watch the videos and films made available through Wellcome Film - the Wellcome Library's film digitisation project. Eventually, over 450 of the most frequently requested films and videos from the Library's Moving Image and Sound Collection will be made freely available online, under Creative Commons licences and in a number of digital formats. So far, around 360 films are available, and the full complement is expected to be online by spring 2010.
The Moving Image and Sound Collection includes material from a variety of sources: broadcast television programmes, departmental collections from universities, professional associations, charities and individuals.
Possibly next in line for digitisation are some of the 1500 or so audio titles held in the Moving Image and Sound Collection. Stand-out items in the collection, which contains broadcast and non-broadcast material, include 1890 recordings of Florence Nightingale's appeal on behalf of the veterans of Balaclava, and a short audio interview with Alexander Fleming broadcast by the BBC in 1945 where he speaks prophetically about the dangers of overexposure to antibiotics.
Five not to miss
A pick of some of the highlights of Wellcome Film:
- A day at Gebel Moya, season 1912-13: Experience life at one of Sir Henry Wellcome's archaeogical sites in Sudan (1912-13)
- Conditioned reflexes and behavior: Reconstructed experiments in Ivan Pavlov's laboratory (c.1930)
- The Both mechanical respirator: Forgotten treatment regimens for respiratory paralysis caused by polio (1950s)
- Dying for a smoke: UK public health information film on smoking (1967)
- The story of the Wellcome Foundation Ltd: Explore the origins of the Wellcome Trust (1955).
Vital statistics
The Moving Image and Sound Collection is the largest compilation of film, video and audio of 20th-century medicine and healthcare in Europe.
It contains:
- over 1300 films, mostly on 16 mm but with a few examples on 8 mm, 9.5 mm and 35 mm
- 3500 videos in many formats, including ¼" open reel tape, U-Matic and Betacam SP
- 1500 sound recordings, mostly held as audio cassettes and CDs.
Image credit: Wellcome Film