Medicine's Moving Pictures: Medicine, Health, and Bodies in American Film and Television (Rochester Studies in Medical History, 10)

This groundbreaking book argues that health and medical media, with their unique goals and production values, constitute a rich cultural and historical archive and deserve greater scholarly attention. Original essays by leading media scholars and historians of medicine demonstrate that Americans throughout the twentieth century have learned about health, disease, medicine, and the human body from movies. Heroic doctors and patients fighting dread diseases have thrilled and moved audiences everywhere; amid changing media formats, medicine's moving pictures continue to educate, entertain, and help us understand the body's journey through life. Perennially popular, health and medical media are also complex texts reflecting many interests and constituencies including, notably, the U.S. medical profession, which has often sought, if not always successfully, to influence content, circulation, and meaning. Medicine's Moving Pictures makes clear that health and medical media representations are "more than illustrations," shows their power to shape health perceptions, practices, and policies, and identifies their social, cultural, and historical contexts. Contributors: Lisa Cartwright, Vanessa Northington Gamble, Rachel Gans-Boriskin, Valerie Hartouni, Susan E. Lederer, John Parascandola, Martin S. Pernick, Leslie J. Reagan, Naomi Rogers, Nancy Tomes, Paula A. Treichler, Joseph Turow Leslie J. Reagan is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Nancy Tomes is a Professor at Stony Brook University; Paula A. Treichler is a Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Table of Contents

More than Illustrations: Early Twentieth-Century Health Films as Contributors to the Histories of Medicine - Martin PernickCelebrity Diseases - Nancy TomesSyphilis at the Cinema: Medicine and Morals in VD Films of the U.S. Public Health Service in World War II - John ParascandolaMedicine, Popular Culture, and the Power of Narrative: The HIV/AIDS Storyline on General Hospital - Paula TreichlerMandy (1952): On Voice and Listening in the (Deaf): Maternal Melodrama - Lisa CartwrightProjecting Breast Cancer: Self-Examination Films and the Making of a New Cultural Practice - Leslie ReaganAmerican Medicine and the Politics of Filmmaking: Sister Kenny (RKO, 1946) - Naomi RogersPassing or Passive: Postwar Hollywood Images of Black Physicians - Vanessa Northington GambleFrom Expert in Action to Existential Angst: A Half Century of Television Doctors - Rachel Gans-Boriskin and Joseph TurrowHollywood and Human Experimentation: Representing Medical Research in Popular Film - Susan LedererTechnicolor Technoscience: Rescripting the Future - Valerie Hartouni