Our regular Friday feature of looking back at the good old days continues. American Academy of Neurology, in cooperation with the Romanian State Archives, has released some of the oldest medical films available anywhere. Shot by a Romanian neurologist Gheorghe Marinescu at the end of 19th century, these cinematographic studies are focused on organic gait disorders and other neurologic deficiencies.
From the abstract:
Between 1899 and 1902, Marinescu perfected the use of cinematography as a research method in neurosciences and published five articles based on cinematographic documents. He focused his studies particularly on organic gait disorders, locomotor ataxia, and hysteria. He adapted Charcot’s method of lining up several patients with the same disorder and showing them together to permit appreciation of archetypes and formes frustes [“an incomplete, abortive, or unusual form of a syndrome or disease” -ed.]. He decomposed the moving pictures into sequential tracings for publication. He documented treatment results with cases filmed before and after therapy.
Watch it here: films 1-4; films 5-8.
Have a wonderful and safe weekend everyone, and thanks for stopping by!
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