2-9-23 Medical Photography and the Humanities

Transcript

• 00:00Good afternoon. My name is Anna Reisman.
• 00:03I'm director of the Program
• 00:04for Humanities and Medicine,
• 00:05and I'm very pleased to welcome you to
• 00:08this special event that is a collaboration
• 00:10with the Medical Historical Library and
• 00:13my wonderful colleague, Melissa Graff.
• 00:15I am so grateful that Melissa
• 00:17reached out back in the fall,
• 00:19and I remember when it was to
• 00:20propose an event to celebrate the
• 00:22opening of this splendid exhibit,
• 00:24which which I think all of you
• 00:26know is entitled the medical lens.
• 00:28Highlights from the Stanley B Burns, MD.
• 00:30Medical photo collection.
• 00:32And after I make the introductions,
• 00:35Melissa will tell you a little bit
• 00:37more about how we got here today.
• 00:38But I want to just again say welcome
• 00:40now to our live and zoom audiences,
• 00:43and this particular event is called
• 00:45medical photography and the humanities,
• 00:47connecting history to practice.
• 00:50And I will introduce our speakers.
• 00:52So Doctor Stanley B Burns is an
• 00:55ophthalmologist and research professor of
• 00:57medicine and psychiatry and a professor
• 01:00of medical humanities at New York University.
• 01:03He's an internationally distinguished author,
• 01:05curator, historian,
• 01:06collector and archivist.
• 01:08He began collecting historic
• 01:10photography in 1975,
• 01:12with an emphasis on unique photographs
• 01:14not available anywhere else.
• 01:16Doctor Burns's collection of over
• 01:191,000,000 vintage photographs.
• 01:211840 to 1950 has been generally
• 01:23recognized as the most important private,
• 01:25comprehensive collection of early
• 01:27photography.
• 01:28In 1977, he founded the Burns
• 01:30Archive to share his discoveries,
• 01:32and he began his writing career.
• 01:34He has since written 50 photo historical
• 01:37texts and more than 1000 journal articles,
• 01:40and has curated more than 100 exhibitions.
• 01:43Maybe this is #101?
• 01:46He consults on feature films,
• 01:48documentaries and television series,
• 01:50and he was the medical,
• 01:52historical and technical adviser to
• 01:54the HBO Cinemax series The Nick,
• 01:56about a New York City hospital
• 01:58in the year 1900,
• 01:59as well as the PBS Civil War series Mercy St.
• 02:04And that was only like a little bit
• 02:05of the bike bio that I received,
• 02:07which is like this so.
• 02:11Chitra Ramalingam is an interdisciplinary
• 02:13curator and academic working
• 02:15between history of science,
• 02:17history of photography,
• 02:18and museum studies.
• 02:20She's been a postdoctoral research
• 02:21fellow at the Science Museum,
• 02:23London and the University of Cambridge,
• 02:25a photography curator at the
• 02:26Yale Center for British Art,
• 02:27and is now on the faculty in the history of
• 02:29Science and Medicine program here at Yale,
• 02:31where she teaches courses on
• 02:33the visual material and sensory
• 02:35culture of science and develops
• 02:38experimental collaborative pedagogies
• 02:39around university collections.
• 02:41She's the author of to see a spark
• 02:44experiment and visual experience
• 02:45in Victorian science and Co,
• 02:47editor of William Henry Fox,
• 02:49Talbot beyond photography,
• 02:51which was published by Yale University Press.
• 02:55She is Co editor of the essays and
• 02:57Review section of the journal Historical
• 02:59Studies in the natural sciences and
• 03:01a member of the editorial collective
• 03:02for 100 histories of 100 Worlds.
• 03:04In one object,
• 03:05a dynamic collaborative project
• 03:07centering excluded voices and
• 03:08histories around objects from the
• 03:10global South in the British Museum.
• 03:12And a few weeks ago, late breaking news.
• 03:14She just began a new position
• 03:16at the Guggenheim.
• 03:18And finally,
• 03:19Melissa Graff is the head of the
• 03:21Medical Historical library here
• 03:22at the Yale School of Medicine.
• 03:24She joined Yale in 2011 as the John R
• 03:27Bumstead Library for medical librarian
• 03:29for medical history at the Harvey
• 03:31Cushing John Hay Whitney Medical Library.
• 03:34Melissa received her PhD in the
• 03:35history of medicine from Johns Hopkins
• 03:37in 20 oh nine and was a council of
• 03:39Library and Information Resources post
• 03:41DOC at Lehigh University Library.
• 03:43Melissa leads the Medical Historical
• 03:45Library team and manages the
• 03:47library's collections,
• 03:48including over 100,000 medical and scientific
• 03:51volumes from the 12th to 21st centuries,
• 03:54as well as a growing digital archive.
• 03:56She works with students and
• 03:58faculty on research and classes,
• 04:00develops grants and publications
• 04:02overseas major digitization projects.
• 04:04Curious in stages exhibits exhibitions,
• 04:06and manages donations, among other duties.
• 04:09Her most recent publication,
• 04:11treating the digital disease,
• 04:12the role of digital and physical primary
• 04:15sources in undergraduate teaching,
• 04:16considers the role of physical and digital
• 04:19collection in undergraduate education.
• 04:21So thank you again, Melissa,
• 04:23for proposing this event
• 04:24and putting it together.
• 04:26Thank you Karen Cole,
• 04:28the program manager.
• 04:31Of the humanities and medicine program.
• 04:32And thank you to our ASL interpreters,
• 04:34who are available on zoom.
• 04:36Everybody else involved in planning this,
• 04:38thank you so much.
• 04:46Good evening everyone and again
• 04:47thank you so much for joining us for
• 04:49this presentation for the kind of
• 04:51opening event for the medical lens,
• 04:53our new exhibition featuring the Stanley
• 04:56Burns Medical Photography Collection.
• 04:58You know, it's been a long time coming.
• 05:00We've worked together for many years,
• 05:01Doctor Burns and I to you know,
• 05:05look through the collection
• 05:07and share excitement about the
• 05:09medical photography that he has.
• 05:10He has much more in his in his home,
• 05:13but we're happy to have this
• 05:15part of the collection.
• 05:16We don't need,
• 05:17I don't think we need a million.
• 05:18I think Kathy would kill me.
• 05:19Our archives, so.
• 05:22And I also want to thank, you know,
• 05:25really the incredible historical library,
• 05:27my colleagues in the Medical Historical
• 05:29Library for all the work they've done
• 05:32in order to put the exhibit together,
• 05:34including Chris Solo, Kelly Perry,
• 05:36Terry Jagrati, Kathy Isham,
• 05:39Dana Howe, Melanie Norton.
• 05:41And hopefully I didn't miss anyone,
• 05:43but I have a Laura,
• 05:44Brian Miller, so who just.
• 05:46I also want to take this opportunity
• 05:49right now to make an announcement.
• 05:51I want to announce that Doctor Burns
• 05:55has kindly endowed a fellowship.
• 05:57For the study of his collection.
• 06:00So in the next week or two,
• 06:02we will be launching on our website
• 06:04on the application opening the
• 06:06applications for this new fellowship.
• 06:08It is the Stanley B Burns,
• 06:10MD Fellowship for the study of
• 06:13Medical Photographic history.
• 06:15It will provide up to $2000.00
• 06:17for a week of research.
• 06:19Here to delve into the Burns collection
• 06:22along with some affiliate material.
• 06:25So we welcome applications,
• 06:26we hope that.
• 06:27People can enjoy the collection as
• 06:30we have find out new and wonderful
• 06:33discoveries and as you know the questions
• 06:36thousands of images here so well,
• 06:38I think there will be a
• 06:39lot of research pathways.
• 06:40So without further ado,
• 06:41I'd like to introduce Doctor
• 06:43Burns and let him take the stage.
• 06:44Doctor burns?
• 06:57Well, thank you, Melissa.
• 06:59For inviting me here and having this
• 07:02opportunity and also to pass an issue
• 07:05helping to put this great exhibit on.
• 07:11The laser pointer,
• 07:13but we'll live without that.
• 07:16Photographs are the most important
• 07:18media to change opinion.
• 07:20Photographs indelibly etched the
• 07:22mind become part of 1 psyche.
• 07:24Iconic photographs are not easily forgotten.
• 07:28Since their introduction in 1839,
• 07:31photographs had played a
• 07:33Seminole role in medicine.
• 07:34Photographs educate physicians,
• 07:36document their work,
• 07:37provide research tools,
• 07:38teach physicians how to present
• 07:40themselves as professionals,
• 07:42and how to interact with patients.
• 07:45Sharing and publishing photographs
• 07:47provide visual intellectual communication.
• 07:49Photographs also help establish
• 07:51the public image of medicine.
• 07:53Photography has become the
• 07:55universal language of our time.
• 07:57Medical humanities attempts to expand
• 08:00health related thinking beyond
• 08:02strict medical scientific guidelines.
• 08:04How patients will be treated or not
• 08:07solely based on medical knowledge.
• 08:10Ethical and political judgments are
• 08:12components of healthcare decisions.
• 08:14Historic medical photographs have an
• 08:17important role in humanities educations.
• 08:19How physicians acted and how
• 08:21patients were treated in the past.
• 08:23The extent of disease people
• 08:25lived with social conditions.
• 08:27And especially the limits of
• 08:29past medical practice offers a
• 08:32perspective of medical action.
• 08:34Photographs illustrate the triumph,
• 08:36as well as the social errors and
• 08:38hubris of medical professionals.
• 08:40Empathy and compassion for patience
• 08:42and understanding the limits of what
• 08:45one knows and doesn't know should be
• 08:48driving forces in medical practice.
• 08:50Historic medical photographs help
• 08:52physicians learn empathy and compassion
• 08:55as they provide a visual expansion
• 08:57of personal experience of the human
• 09:00condition as they can relate the
• 09:02images to their own practice.
• 09:04Before the eight years I have been
• 09:07presenting historic medical photographs
• 09:09to medical and public audiences.
• 09:11I'm thrilled that the Yale University
• 09:14Medical Library now has my historic
• 09:16medical photography collection and
• 09:18that it is cherished, cared for it,
• 09:21and is available to a wide audience
• 09:24in perpetuity.
• 09:25I would like to share the history
• 09:27of the collection,
• 09:28and it's used as a tool of
• 09:30medical humanities.
• 09:36This is an example of my
• 09:38favorite medical photograph.
• 09:40Radiologists are in the audience.
• 09:41They will tell you that those people
• 09:44were probably dead in seven years.
• 09:46Oh, they're looking at a kidney.
• 09:49I'll take a few seconds to discuss that.
• 09:52This is how they did kidney operations.
• 09:54You had a kidney stone.
• 09:55They would slice the kidney if they
• 09:57didn't find it and that's how I turned
• 09:59the patient over slice the other side.
• 10:01But in 1897 with the invention
• 10:04of the fluoroscopy and the X-ray,
• 10:06they were able to once the kidney was
• 10:09taken out because they couldn't go
• 10:11through abdominal area at that time
• 10:13they would just X-ray the kidney.
• 10:15I'm in my 85th year.
• 10:19Let me just get my next slide.
• 10:21I was born in 1938 in Brownsville,
• 10:23Brooklyn, a year before World
• 10:25War Two started in Europe.
• 10:27the United States entered the war in 1941.
• 10:30I had 6 uncles in the war and I did my part.
• 10:34I had a victory garden,
• 10:35collected paper and especially
• 10:37aluminum foil from cigarette packs,
• 10:39and we saved cooking oil.
• 10:41While most of the country
• 10:43blatantly ignored the Holocaust,
• 10:44despite irrefutable evidence,
• 10:45in Brooklyn and other Jewish
• 10:48communities it was well known
• 10:50that Jews were being shot,
• 10:51gassed and burned to death and
• 10:54Jewish civilization destroyed.
• 10:56My part as a 7 year old was to collect
• 10:58funds for Jewish relief on the stairs
• 11:01of the elevated train lines at Saratoga.
• 11:04Giving you a 5:30 PM as people
• 11:06came home from work.
• 11:10Here is the 1943 text on the Holocaust.
• 11:14As you can see, Mrs.
• 11:15Roosevelt, other dignitaries,
• 11:17Albert Einstein, they all knew
• 11:20about the Holocaust extermination
• 11:21camps in 1942 and they did nothing.
• 11:24So at a young age I began my
• 11:27lifelong study of history to find
• 11:29out we got to our current situation.
• 11:34I've spent my life as an
• 11:36intellectual adventure,
• 11:37attempting to share my discoveries.
• 11:39Some know me best for my
• 11:41work on death related topics.
• 11:44On display is the postmortem
• 11:46daguerreotype of doctor Samuel Howe,
• 11:48a young physician who died fighting
• 11:51the cholera epidemic in 1849.
• 11:53The image was taken to memorialize him,
• 11:56a once common practice.
• 11:58My interest in death and
• 12:01dying issues stemmed.
• 12:03From my medical school years at Syracuse,
• 12:06I had befriended one of my professors,
• 12:09cultural anthropologist Dr.
• 12:10Ernest Becker.
• 12:12Becker was trying to answer the question,
• 12:14what makes people act the way they do.
• 12:17I studied that question from
• 12:20a historical perspective.
• 12:21Death was the cultural taboo
• 12:23of the 20th century,
• 12:25as six was the cultural
• 12:27taboo of the 19th century.
• 12:29My books and exhibitions on postmortem
• 12:31and medical photography supported
• 12:33Becker's concern with death anxiety.
• 12:36How we deal with death is a challenge
• 12:39many physicians face every day.
• 12:43John Gardner, novelist and
• 12:44literary critic, was a friend.
• 12:46I helped him write his first novel,
• 12:48The Resurrection,
• 12:49which integrated death anxiety philosophy.
• 12:52The book was pulp.
• 12:53There were only about 50 copies sold,
• 12:55and I was offered over $20,000 for this
• 12:58book and the documents I had with it.
• 13:01About 20 years ago,
• 13:02when he was very popular.
• 13:06Here's an interesting image.
• 13:08People always talk about provenance.
• 13:10Peter Buxton was the firearms
• 13:12dealer who convinced me to collect
• 13:15the Guerra types and photographs.
• 13:17Here is the South American Indians,
• 13:20the tumor of a jewel,
• 13:21which is now at Yale.
• 13:23And you have him and myself posed in
• 13:26a picture with another ambrotype,
• 13:29which is also now at the Yale Collection.
• 13:32This is the best kofinas you could ever get.
• 13:34Picture taken in the 70s.
• 13:36And that small picture in the
• 13:38center of doctor Alessio Acosta,
• 13:40who took the daguerreotype,
• 13:41will be in the Yale collection this year.
• 13:44And that's a picture of
• 13:46the person Robert Rubin,
• 13:47who first helped me get academic
• 13:49appointments in the history of medicine
• 13:51and also with my first exhibition.
• 13:55So during the 70s,
• 13:57I lectured on the Holocaust.
• 13:59This is some of the documents
• 14:00I collected at the time.
• 14:01The Holocaust was not a popular topic when
• 14:04it became popular at the end of the 70s,
• 14:06and Holocaust museums would be informed
• 14:08it was 30 years past the end of the war.
• 14:12But this is an example.
• 14:13The document on the right is part
• 14:15of a medical license for physicians.
• 14:18It lists all these subjects
• 14:20they're allowed to treat.
• 14:22On the bottom,
• 14:22it lists what they're not
• 14:23allowed to treat it.
• 14:24It's against the law to treat syphilis,
• 14:27gonorrhea or make serums.
• 14:29The document on the left is as
• 14:32you could see if you could see the
• 14:35underlying writing was issued by the Gestapo.
• 14:38It was issued to a Viennese
• 14:40physician so that he can go to the
• 14:43hospital and not have to and not
• 14:45be stopped to wash streets,
• 14:47which was very popular at the time.
• 14:50Anyway,
• 14:51this is part of my Holocaust
• 14:55document collection.
• 14:56I originally collected books.
• 14:57I then collected firearms
• 14:59and let me tell you,
• 15:00there is nothing that sells faster than
• 15:03an antique firearm in this country.
• 15:06And so when I started to collect photographs,
• 15:09I sold my collection and I had
• 15:11over 400 really rare guns.
• 15:13It was again a window opportunities
• 15:15in in the early 60s.
• 15:16I've always taken advantage of
• 15:18that window of opportunity to
• 15:21collect historic topics.
• 15:22I began as you heard,
• 15:24collecting photographs in 75.
• 15:26And in 77 started my interest in
• 15:31sharing my archive by publications.
• 15:35This is the first journal cover
• 15:37I did November of 77.
• 15:39I had written three articles
• 15:40before this and had presented it
• 15:42a couple of medical meetings.
• 15:46This is 1978, only three years
• 15:48after I started my collection.
• 15:50My collection was recognized by time life
• 15:52because of the exhibits and lectures as
• 15:54the best emerging collection as you can
• 15:56see the first sentence there are few
• 15:58collectibles have gone from trash to
• 16:00treasure and as abruptly as old photographs.
• 16:04But that is a long time ago.
• 16:08My first major exhibition
• 16:09I had 1000 photographs.
• 16:11I called it 1000 words and my first major.
• 16:15Lecture. I then started writing early
• 16:20medical photography in America,
• 16:21which became a classic.
• 16:23It hasn't been much improved upon.
• 16:26And those are some of the New
• 16:28York State Journal covers.
• 16:31These are some of the offprints
• 16:34from the early journals.
• 16:35And which was the most popular ones?
• 16:37Which was civil war medical photography,
• 16:39which is a thread that has run through
• 16:42my collection the last 50 years,
• 16:44and medical publications with photographs.
• 16:48My most famous picture,
• 16:50the breakthrough in medicine and art,
• 16:53came with Ingrid Sischy,
• 16:54who was a major editor of the Time,
• 16:56Publishing my article under her
• 16:59editorship in Art Form magazine.
• 17:02And I think all those pictures
• 17:04are at Yale now.
• 17:06As you'll see,
• 17:06I'll show some of the same pictures that
• 17:08I've published them in different journals.
• 17:09The point is,
• 17:10you could look at this picture and I
• 17:12could talk to about the 222 doctors
• 17:14learning professionalism and how to operate,
• 17:16or I could use this picture in oncology.
• 17:18Music magazine and explain how
• 17:20William Rodman was the leading
• 17:22breast surgeon of his time before
• 17:24William Halsted and and.
• 17:29This was my first exhibit at a medical
• 17:34convention and this and I actually.
• 17:37They're preserving the vision of
• 17:39American medicine became my tagline.
• 17:44And the bottom picture,
• 17:45the center picture is of became
• 17:47curator of the foundation of the
• 17:49American Academy of Ophthalmology.
• 17:51In the picture of health was the
• 17:54first public exhibition of medical
• 17:56photography in an art gallery,
• 17:58curated by Marvin Heiferman.
• 18:00Again, of course, that that famous
• 18:03picture which is outside here,
• 18:04so you could look at it as you as you go,
• 18:08as are all those other pictures.
• 18:10Yale has all these pictures.
• 18:14This is really the first medical humanities
• 18:18exhibition done here in Connecticut.
• 18:21And this is was 1985 and you could
• 18:23look at my really primitive, you know,
• 18:26pasted together list of photographs,
• 18:29but 1985? Long time ago.
• 18:35My greatest accomplishment in the 80s,
• 18:38something where my medical journals,
• 18:42Bristol Laboratories,
• 18:43underwrote a series of journals that I
• 18:47produced about four to six times a year,
• 18:51and they contained C22 issues,
• 18:53were made with 177 articles.
• 18:56These were they were between 28
• 19:00and 32,000 copies per issue,
• 19:02and they were sent to doctors in various.
• 19:05Professions first.
• 19:07Otolaryngology, ophthalmology,
• 19:08general surgery.
• 19:14This is where medicine became true art.
• 19:17When Joel Peter Witkin.
• 19:19Wanted to establish a book on the
• 19:22human body and came to my collection
• 19:26after conferring with the Washington,
• 19:28DC experts that I had the pictures,
• 19:32I had the originals.
• 19:33And actually that's a picture of Joel
• 19:35and I I'll just tell you a quick story
• 19:37about that head in his soup plate,
• 19:38which you'll see the original later.
• 19:40Joel wanted to do a picture of
• 19:42the head and the soup plate that
• 19:44I had was taken in Columbus,
• 19:46OH, but he couldn't get ahead.
• 19:48He couldn't get ahead in America.
• 19:49We went to Mexico.
• 19:50He couldn't get ahead in Mexico,
• 19:52but he could get a body.
• 19:54So he got a body,
• 19:55drilled a hole in the table,
• 19:57drilled a hole in the soup
• 19:59plate and put the head.
• 20:01And the soup plate.
• 20:02And this was at an exhibition November 22.
• 20:07This was really another transition point.
• 20:10Medical medicine and photography in
• 20:12the history of photography magazine.
• 20:14This is the academic magazine in
• 20:18photographic history and it's about
• 20:22Joel and I and human body parts.
• 20:25Now I wasn't only writing my own journal.
• 20:28Other people came to me from various
• 20:32magazines and I was writing at the same time.
• 20:36About 10 journals a month of here you
• 20:38see the Journal of Otolaryngology.
• 20:41Just some of the covers,
• 20:42all of these magazines.
• 20:44Here I had multiple regular journal
• 20:46articles with different medical
• 20:48photographs and I wrote all the
• 20:51articles I did have some people do
• 20:54the editing because I am dyslexic.
• 20:57Oh, the one other thing I should
• 20:59tell you is where I get my usual
• 21:01ability with photography from.
• 21:02I have an A museum I cannot remember.
• 21:06Words to songs.
• 21:09So when my daughter has 10,000 songs
• 21:11in her head and can sing them,
• 21:13I can only do the first line of three songs.
• 21:16The rest of my head is filled with
• 21:18these photographs and that's why
• 21:20I can put into context history.
• 21:22Angiography.
• 21:25Of course, by 1990 came around,
• 21:27we started working with Ken Burns
• 21:29with civil war material and this
• 21:32is just an unusual album that
• 21:34was kept at here with hospital.
• 21:36Showing some of the photographs,
• 21:38we also redid it in 2012 with
• 21:40the Republic of suffering,
• 21:41when they upped the number
• 21:43of people killed in the civil
• 21:45war from 750,000 to 850,000.
• 21:52Europe was a favorite playground
• 21:54for medical photography,
• 21:55and here's an exhibition we
• 21:57had at Velvet in Switzerland.
• 22:01And that's where.
• 22:02Was a great experience.
• 22:04I also covered other fields.
• 22:06So in 1990 I did.
• 22:07The American dentist and I have a large
• 22:09collection of early dental photography.
• 22:11If you go outside,
• 22:12you'll see one of those dental photographs,
• 22:14and I think it appeared in this book.
• 22:17The face of mercy was a book.
• 22:19I think Cheryl knew and did the text.
• 22:21I did the photographic history
• 22:23and it's just medicine at war.
• 22:26I have photographic pictures
• 22:28of physicians at war since
• 22:30the Crimean War in 1856.
• 22:35This was the breakthrough book of
• 22:38my Career in memorial photography,
• 22:40as you can see, made the front page
• 22:43of the New York Times Book Review and
• 22:46since 1990 we have had a minimum of 1
• 22:50exhibition a year on memorial photography.
• 22:54I just. And this was they had hired
• 22:57John Updike to write about the book.
• 22:59This was, of course,
• 23:00a year later in American heritage,
• 23:02and I think it was John Snow,
• 23:03who was the editor, wrote an article about
• 23:06my contribution to American culture.
• 23:08With reintroducing.
• 23:11Memorial photography I worked several
• 23:15years on creating this documentary.
• 23:18Sorry, but the bottom is missing.
• 23:19It should say death in America.
• 23:22I'll get to my IT people later.
• 23:26But I went to awards and this
• 23:29film was used in high schools
• 23:32and colleges for about a decade.
• 23:35These are just some articles in magazines
• 23:38that I had worked on this special issue.
• 23:42The new image in the nude image in medical
• 23:44photography is a particularly hot topic.
• 23:46I mean, if you look through
• 23:48the history of photography,
• 23:49you see in the 1840s, eighteen 70s,
• 23:51it was a whole body's picture.
• 23:53It was a holistic view.
• 23:54I, as I lectured on you,
• 23:56saw the entire person naked even though they
• 23:59had a lesion in the head or or fully dressed.
• 24:03And so.
• 24:05And I want to also want to remind
• 24:08everyone I was a ophthalmologist.
• 24:10I practice a good eight hour day,
• 24:12six days a week.
• 24:13I didn't have to sleep.
• 24:14That's why all this work got done.
• 24:17And I took out a picture of what I did,
• 24:19emergency work,
• 24:20the US Coast Guard back in the 60s.
• 24:22So I always loved emergencies
• 24:24because I lived where I worked.
• 24:27I had no clock so I could see
• 24:29patients at 2:00 in the morning.
• 24:31I got to see a lot of actors,
• 24:34actresses, hip hop stars.
• 24:35You know who would call me at all
• 24:37hours of the day, at all weekends.
• 24:39My kids will tell you that.
• 24:41But I wrote every day,
• 24:42usually between 11:00 PM
• 24:44and 3:00 AM or 4:00 AM.
• 24:49Here is a photograph teaching
• 24:52medical humanities at the archive.
• 24:54So we've had students from NYU,
• 24:56others medical schools and colleges
• 24:59come to the archive where we do focused.
• 25:02Discussions.
• 25:04Now, as was mentioned during the
• 25:061990s when they did this sort of thing,
• 25:09my photograph collection.
• 25:11Historic photograph collection was
• 25:12rated best in the United States.
• 25:15Not art photography.
• 25:16Don't ask me about a famous photographer.
• 25:19If you could find the photograph
• 25:20somewhere else, I don't want it.
• 25:22I only need photographs and use photographs
• 25:25that are unavailable in other institutions.
• 25:28Almost everyone else on the list,
• 25:30it was a billionaire.
• 25:32By 1995 it was historic
• 25:34photography and Judaica,
• 25:35because I continued to collect
• 25:38photography in the Judaica field.
• 25:41Some people say this is my greatest
• 25:44contribution to the history of art.
• 25:45William Rubin, director,
• 25:47curator of modern art at the
• 25:50New York Museum of Modern Art,
• 25:52came to me and said that Picasso did
• 25:55not get his ideas from African masks.
• 25:58Picasso got his ideas from the destruction of
• 26:01faces he had seen in the lazaretto in Paris,
• 26:05in Spain.
• 26:08And so we did this book the damage.
• 26:10Elzey Ave.
• 26:11And it's just an interesting aspect
• 26:13because a lot of people didn't believe it.
• 26:16And when William Rubin used to ask Picasso.
• 26:19Did your ideas come from syphilitic
• 26:22patients or African mask?
• 26:24He said.
• 26:26Would you rather have it something
• 26:28like from diseased women or
• 26:31from the tradition of art?
• 26:33Anyway,
• 26:33there is my one attachment to Picasso
• 26:35with a picture of French orange
• 26:38Jello who bore his two children.
• 26:40She's still alive and well
• 26:41and living in New York.
• 26:46Mornings work came out in 1998.
• 26:49There was another of my
• 26:51noted medical books, crime.
• 26:53My greatest areas of collecting
• 26:56are medical photography,
• 26:58crime photography, Judaic photography,
• 27:01African-American photography,
• 27:02and of course, medical photography.
• 27:05So these are my books on crime and forensics.
• 27:10Just some of my lectures at various places.
• 27:13My what everyone says was my favorite
• 27:16lectures at time is the maladies.
• 27:18They made the creation of female genital
• 27:21disease by physicians and that was
• 27:24given to OB GYN incoming residents.
• 27:31This is Sleeping Beauty too.
• 27:32What about great exhibitions
• 27:34because it was at the Musee Dorsay.
• 27:36One Side Story I think I have time for.
• 27:39They have their major exhibitions
• 27:41in the afternoon, the reason why
• 27:42they invited all the other curators,
• 27:44and when I asked the head of of cultural.
• 27:49There is in in France and he said,
• 27:50well, if we happen in the evening,
• 27:52then it's on their time.
• 27:54If we have it in the afternoon,
• 27:56it's on the government's time.
• 27:57So it was a great exhibit.
• 27:59These are some of the exhibits
• 28:02which I participated in and
• 28:04created sleeping beauties,
• 28:05memorial photography, the dental exhibit,
• 28:08war photography and deadly
• 28:09medicine was about the Nazis.
• 28:11In 2003 I began my 4 volume series
• 28:15of medical texts and here they are.
• 28:18This is. Respiratory disease oncology.
• 28:22With every one of these texts
• 28:25there was always an exhibition.
• 28:28Dermatology.
• 28:31Patients in promise,
• 28:32which was an Eli Lilly company.
• 28:34It was very difficult to get the the legal.
• 28:38Over to be able to produce a book like this,
• 28:41but a lot of fun nephrology for Roche.
• 28:44And one of the things I don't have
• 28:46here in 1986 I created a movie for
• 28:49Roche called Prelude to anesthesia.
• 28:53Ophthalmology text.
• 28:56This was a series of
• 28:57articles I wrote for scope,
• 28:58which was an Irish surgical journal
• 29:00based on my Irish surgical photographs.
• 29:03And as you can see those pictures
• 29:06on the upper part on the right,
• 29:09very interesting pictures of patients.
• 29:12Totally dressed with their disease.
• 29:14Now I just had to show you I
• 29:15created several pages of this.
• 29:16I removed it because it's literally boring.
• 29:19Several pages of the journals
• 29:21that I had done. Again,
• 29:23this was the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• 29:26This was Mercy St.
• 29:28we went to our civil war material
• 29:30and of course I did the nick.
• 29:32I want you all to see the nick.
• 29:34And then you'll see what
• 29:36medical history was was like,
• 29:38I don't know if I could hit that list,
• 29:40but I'll just go on.
• 29:41This was the nick where I was on set.
• 29:44These are some of the films I did.
• 29:47The city of Bologna invited US and
• 29:49I gave a lecture at the Ignazio,
• 29:52which was the original amphitheater
• 29:55in Bologna.
• 29:56Another medical book, my last one, 2017.
• 30:01Was on mentioned.
• 30:02Now all of these pictures are at Yale.
• 30:05And this was our our book
• 30:07Stiff skulls and skeletons.
• 30:09I would only like to say is most people
• 30:13know me as a history of medicine person.
• 30:15They know me for my
• 30:17giving my collection here.
• 30:19But some of my friends said I would
• 30:21be best be known by 1,000,000 as
• 30:24a gastroenterologist because I
• 30:27did the colonoscopy on Anthony
• 30:30Fat Tony Salerno in the Irishman.
• 30:34And these are the people that helped me.
• 30:37Thank you. I'm available for questions later.
• 30:43Thank you. Thank you.
• 30:47These are just like these are just my
• 30:49future books that we're working on.
• 31:31Hi everyone. Um, so?
• 31:33As I mentioned in the introduction,
• 31:37I am a historian and a former
• 31:39curator of photography.
• 31:45Umm. With a special interest in early
• 31:49photography and its intersections
• 31:51with the history of science.
• 31:52I'm not a specialist in medical photography,
• 31:56but for many years I have found it
• 31:58extremely fruitful and generative
• 31:59to teach with medical photographs,
• 32:01primarily in the medical history
• 32:03library here, mostly depending upon the
• 32:06incredible expertise of Melissa graph,
• 32:09and recently with objects in the Burns
• 32:11collection after they arrived there.
• 32:13And so I've been teaching
• 32:15with medical photographs for.
• 32:16Seven or eight years now?
• 32:19To undergraduate and graduate students at
• 32:20Yale in History of Science and Medicine,
• 32:23but also to students from across the
• 32:24humanities and social sciences and a
• 32:26couple of medical students who found
• 32:28their way to my classes as well.
• 32:29So I wanted to follow on from Stanley's
• 32:31presentation by reflecting a little
• 32:33bit with all of you on what it can
• 32:35mean to think historically and
• 32:37humanistically about medical photography.
• 32:39Drawing on my experience working with
• 32:41these kinds of objects in my teaching,
• 32:44and drawing on some of the insights
• 32:46from recent approaches to the
• 32:48interdisciplinary history of photography.
• 32:49So now bring my lunch back up.
• 32:53So these two photographs were taken
• 32:55just a few years apart from one another,
• 32:58and they offer two very different
• 33:01ways of seeing, knowing,
• 33:03feeling the presence of pathogens,
• 33:06and grappling with death or its possibility.
• 33:09So on the one hand, on the left.
• 33:10Wait, my left? Yeah, everyone's left.
• 33:15You have a microscopic view of the
• 33:17blood of a yellow fever victim,
• 33:19enhanced, as you'll notice by careful
• 33:21systematic record keeping right?
• 33:23So you can see the pencil inscriptions or
• 33:25ink actually inscription indicating the time
• 33:27passed and the progression of the disease,
• 33:30the patient case number, and more.
• 33:32The other on the right,
• 33:33instead of portrait of a child with smallpox,
• 33:35their face visible through intense scarring,
• 33:37their head gently cradled by someone,
• 33:40perhaps a caregiver.
• 33:42Where the annotations on the first
• 33:44tell us really clearly that this
• 33:45blood sample is from a fatal case,
• 33:47and the 2nd we have few visual cues
• 33:49to tell us for sure whether this
• 33:51young patient is alive or dead.
• 33:53Whereas the first,
• 33:53the one on the left,
• 33:55invites us to see yellow fever as
• 33:57a virus and microscopic threat,
• 33:59an impersonal battle occurring
• 34:00beyond the threshold of visibility,
• 34:03the second one tugs at our hearts with
• 34:05its moving portrait of a suffering child.
• 34:06It invites empathy and sorrow,
• 34:09and it suggests the possibility of care.
• 34:12So in my research and my teaching,
• 34:14I've I've learned to think about
• 34:16photography as a family of practices
• 34:18and techniques that have really been
• 34:19woven into the fabric of knowledge
• 34:21making and knowledge circulation
• 34:23in the sciences and in medicine.
• 34:25And there's so much heterogeneity
• 34:27across those fields.
• 34:28Within medicine specifically,
• 34:30there's different ways of observing and
• 34:32describing and knowing and engaging body,
• 34:34different ways of communicating
• 34:36and acting on that knowledge.
• 34:39It has never been one way of
• 34:41seeing across medical practice,
• 34:42and there's no photograph that
• 34:44commands a single reading simply
• 34:46by virtue of being medical or
• 34:48being about medicine in some way.
• 34:50The medical photograph has always
• 34:52been a contingent historical category
• 34:54of a fuzzy and indistinct one,
• 34:56and no medical photograph is
• 34:58just a medical photograph.
• 34:59So many of the photographs in the exhibition
• 35:01today are many other kinds of image as well,
• 35:03right?
• 35:03Like some of them might be
• 35:05memorial objects or souvenirs,
• 35:06presentations of the self press photographs.
• 35:09They might invoke or undermine ideas
• 35:11about gender or racial difference,
• 35:13about disability and health,
• 35:14about what it means to be human.
• 35:17And more.
• 35:17And so I see the burns collection,
• 35:20with its rich documentation
• 35:21of medical practice,
• 35:22medical pedagogy,
• 35:23and historical ways of seeing and
• 35:25experiencing the body through change,
• 35:27injury and disease.
• 35:28I see it as this remarkable opportunity
• 35:30to think not just about medicine,
• 35:32but to explore it,
• 35:34to to explore and probe the interfaces
• 35:36between medicine and other kinds
• 35:38of social and cultural experience.
• 35:41And so.
• 35:44I think looking at photographs from
• 35:46the 19th and early 20th century,
• 35:47such as the ones in this exhibition,
• 35:49are also an opportunity to to try and
• 35:52acknowledge and then think across the
• 35:54Gulf that lies between our experiences
• 35:56of these images now in the 21st century,
• 35:59and how viewers and users and
• 36:01medical practitioners would have
• 36:03engaged with them in the past.
• 36:05And so I don't simply mean like,
• 36:06how would you know,
• 36:07past people have looked at these photographs.
• 36:10What would they see in them?
• 36:10I want to kind of push beyond the image,
• 36:13beyond the picture itself.
• 36:15How would they experience them?
• 36:18What you and I see when we look at
• 36:20pictures like these is radically different
• 36:22from those past historical experiences.
• 36:24So we all know, right?
• 36:25Like each of you is probably
• 36:26carrying like 2 cameras with you
• 36:28right now in some device or other.
• 36:29It's such a photography.
• 36:30It's such a part of the fabric of
• 36:33our everyday visual experience.
• 36:34We're intensely familiar with photography
• 36:36as a technology for making pictures,
• 36:38and we're accustomed to seeing
• 36:40photographic images reproduced in
• 36:42a variety of formats and media.
• 36:44We live in the confidence that
• 36:46we can almost literally pull out
• 36:47any image anywhere on the screen.
• 36:49Whatever device is closest to hand.
• 36:51Sometimes we consume photographs
• 36:53without even thinking about the fact
• 36:54that we're looking at photographs.
• 36:56We kind of we think that we're looking
• 36:57through them at something that's
• 36:59something that we're seeing directly,
• 37:00this original thing.
• 37:02In those moments,
• 37:03we see the photograph as a almost
• 37:05like a transparent window,
• 37:06a window on a historical moment,
• 37:08or on someone's past experience,
• 37:10a fleeting moment that was somehow captured
• 37:13by photography before it vanished forever.
• 37:15So these are some of the unspoken
• 37:17assumptions that I think many of
• 37:19us might bring instinctively to
• 37:20looking at an exhibition like the one
• 37:22that we're kind of marking today.
• 37:24And there are historical reasons
• 37:26for how this came to be,
• 37:27how people, not not everyone,
• 37:29not all the time,
• 37:30but how many people came to look at
• 37:32photographs as something to look through.
• 37:33But today,
• 37:34with all of these incredible 19th century
• 37:37images on view just outside these doors,
• 37:39I want to remind you that this was not
• 37:41at all true of 19th century viewers.
• 37:45The people who made and used
• 37:46and participated in most of the
• 37:48photographs in this exhibition.
• 37:49When they looked at a photograph
• 37:51of a person of a scene of a
• 37:54microscopic view of a virus,
• 37:56they were intensely aware that
• 37:57they were looking at a photograph
• 37:59at a thing called a photograph.
• 38:01They engage with photographs,
• 38:02not just his images,
• 38:03but as three-dimensional material objects.
• 38:07They experience them as things with volume,
• 38:09with weight, with opacity,
• 38:11with tactility, fragility,
• 38:12a kind of the kind of physical
• 38:15presence in the world.
• 38:16And those things mattered for what
• 38:18the photograph meant to them.
• 38:22This awareness of the materiality
• 38:24of of early photographs is it's
• 38:26unavoidable when you when you
• 38:28encounter objects like this
• 38:30daguerreotype which is on view outside.
• 38:33I think we've seen it on screen
• 38:34a couple of minutes ago before.
• 38:35This is a postmortem photograph
• 38:37of physician who who died of
• 38:39cholera in Saint Louis in 1849.
• 38:43I'm assuming that not everyone
• 38:44here is a photo historian,
• 38:46so I'm also just going to briefly
• 38:47describe what a daguerreotype is,
• 38:48in case that might be helpful in thinking
• 38:50about the materiality of this object.
• 38:52Right. So at daycare type is a photograph
• 38:55of physical photograph on a copper plate.
• 38:57So it's a piece of metal covered with a
• 38:59layer of finely polished silver in which
• 39:01the image is suspended simultaneously,
• 39:04a negative and a positive image.
• 39:08So to really see the portrait of
• 39:09this man in death, the image has
• 39:11to be maneuvered at an angle.
• 39:14So that you're you're kind of your
• 39:15eye and your hand and the object
• 39:17have to work together as one to get
• 39:18to the place where you can see it.
• 39:20Now it's been masterfully displayed
• 39:21out there with like very careful and
• 39:24precise lighting and I know how hard
• 39:26it is kind of curatorial to make that
• 39:27happen so that you can look at it and
• 39:29see it as an image that's easy to see
• 39:31but that's not really what they're like.
• 39:33In fact the you know
• 39:34there's they're so fragile,
• 39:35they're so gem like and you have
• 39:38to hold them to to understand them
• 39:40and to feel what they're about.
• 39:42The surface of these objects
• 39:44is so fragile and vulnerable,
• 39:45not just to the touch from our fingers,
• 39:47but to the very air around them,
• 39:49which is why so many daguerreotypes
• 39:51were housed and housed in cases
• 39:53like like this one.
• 39:54So the kind of leather case,
• 39:55the think it's velvet lining.
• 39:58So you've got these these tiny
• 40:00little photographs with they're
• 40:01flickering reflective surfaces.
• 40:03They're crisp and intricate detail,
• 40:05their uniqueness,
• 40:05they're unreproducible ability
• 40:06because you can only,
• 40:08you can't make multiples from it,
• 40:09you can just rephotograph it.
• 40:12And their packaging in these tiny cases,
• 40:14all of these features make them into this,
• 40:17this kind of treasure like object, right?
• 40:19And in fact,
• 40:20most dangerous type portraits were
• 40:21treated like gems and keepsakes,
• 40:23not like pictures that you'd hang on
• 40:25the wall or that you'd print in a book.
• 40:27These are,
• 40:28you know,
• 40:29these are objects that are bearers
• 40:30of memory and love.
• 40:31And this is expressed really beautifully
• 40:33in the newspaper obituary that someone
• 40:36who cared very much about this person
• 40:38carefully preserved inside the case,
• 40:40facing the image.
• 40:43And there are many objects in this
• 40:45exhibition that likewise call our attention
• 40:48to the physicality of photographs,
• 40:50to their the way that their physical
• 40:53format shaped their meaning.
• 40:54Using a medical photograph often involved
• 40:57some sort of embodied relationship to it.
• 41:00Um,
• 41:00and medical photographs can also
• 41:02be a portal through which we can
• 41:04consider physical and embodied
• 41:06aspects of material practice itself.
• 41:08So this example from Howard Kelly's
• 41:111911 stereo clinic used pairs
• 41:13of stereoscopic images combined
• 41:15with an optical viewing device to
• 41:18create an immersive 3D experience
• 41:20of surgery for the user,
• 41:22presumably a surgeon or a surgical student.
• 41:26So seeing these images, so you know you,
• 41:29you place the card in the holder,
• 41:31you look through the device
• 41:32you have to have your eye at,
• 41:33you know,
• 41:33in the right position.
• 41:34You've got to be able to focus and
• 41:36unfocus your eyes in just the right way.
• 41:37You might get a headache.
• 41:38It causes quite a lot of eye strain,
• 41:40like these things demand a lot
• 41:42of your body and especially
• 41:44of your eyes and your mind.
• 41:46They they produce mental fatigue
• 41:47as well as physical fatigue.
• 41:48In my at least in my experience now
• 41:50I'm just being autobiographical.
• 41:54And they require the user to be constantly
• 41:56aware of their own position in relation to
• 41:59the instrument and in relation to the image.
• 42:01But for all of that kind of physical effort.
• 42:04They allowed the user to have this
• 42:06experience of stopping time in the
• 42:08crucial moment of a surgical procedure,
• 42:10and then closely at leisure along time,
• 42:13examine like that most crucial moment,
• 42:16and to do so far away from the hurried
• 42:18and chaotic space of the operating room
• 42:20and the many obstacles to visibility
• 42:23and understanding that might be there.
• 42:25So this pedagogical set of stereo images.
• 42:30Speaks to us about how visual technology
• 42:33was mobilized to reform medical
• 42:35education in early 20th century.
• 42:37And it kind of tells us a little bit
• 42:39about what what the vision of medical
• 42:42teaching was right that you needed to be
• 42:45able to look long and slow and observe
• 42:48lots of detail in ways that the surgical
• 42:51theater might not necessarily allow.
• 42:53So these photographs are images, sure,
• 42:55but they're also physical objects that
• 42:57exist in social and cultural experience,
• 43:00in physical experience,
• 43:01material kind of embodied experience.
• 43:03And one of the things I find exciting
• 43:05about this exhibition is the opportunity
• 43:07to experience this and reflect upon it.
• 43:09Unfortunately,
• 43:09you can't put your eyes up to the viewer in
• 43:12the exhibition and have that 3D experience,
• 43:14but you can kind of, you know,
• 43:16see what the viewer looks like,
• 43:17imagine holding it in your hand.
• 43:21Umm.
• 43:26There's a truism about photography that it
• 43:29faithfully records everything that we see.
• 43:32And that's. That's a statement about
• 43:34photography that was made more or
• 43:36less from the moment the medium was
• 43:37invented in the early 19th century.
• 43:39But paired with that is another truism that
• 43:41came almost immediately right afterward,
• 43:44which is that photography allows
• 43:45us to supersede vision,
• 43:47to go beyond the limits of human perception,
• 43:49to bring other things into view
• 43:51that we couldn't see before.
• 43:52And medical photographs are a really
• 43:55interesting genre for exploring this
• 43:57tension between different models of how to
• 44:00know through seeing different epistemic
• 44:02values for photography in medicine,
• 44:04because of the profound aesthetic
• 44:06and ethical issues that arise
• 44:08from these two possibilities.
• 44:10So some of the images in the exhibition
• 44:12invite us to see medical observation
• 44:14as focused on the visible recording and
• 44:17rich and precise detail the exterior
• 44:19presentation of some interior condition,
• 44:21so on the skin or in the posture.
• 44:25While others,
• 44:26such as X-ray images on the left suggest
• 44:28the importance of going beyond the surface,
• 44:31so seeing through the soft tissues
• 44:33of the body into the conditions of
• 44:36those invisible interior structures.
• 44:38Or if we go back.
• 44:40To the microscopic views of blood during a
• 44:43case of yellow fever that I started with.
• 44:47Some images might insist on the
• 44:48importance of a different kind
• 44:50of observation that is serial,
• 44:51so it happens over time,
• 44:52through a sequence of images,
• 44:55through a kind of sequence of moments
• 44:57and kind of piercing together.
• 44:58That temporal development of something is
• 45:01a key aspect of expert medical observation.
• 45:05In images like these and so I
• 45:06don't know if you can read in the
• 45:09inscription like the first one says.
• 45:11On the right hand side of the
• 45:12inscription it says first day and
• 45:13in this one it says fifth day.
• 45:19So I said earlier the aesthetics and
• 45:21ethics of these medical portraits and
• 45:22these are related to each other and it's
• 45:24worth reflecting on them a little bit.
• 45:26And by the way, I'm I'm calling
• 45:28these portraits and you might think
• 45:29that that's the wrong word for
• 45:31the images that I'm showing here.
• 45:32But going back to what I said earlier
• 45:34about the importance of material
• 45:36form to photographic meaning,
• 45:37I just want to point out that these
• 45:41photographs are printed or sorry are pasted
• 45:44onto cardboard mount called a cabinet.
• 45:46Card, which is a format for presenting
• 45:48photographs that was primarily used for
• 45:50the exchange and circulation of portraits,
• 45:52and there are actually many examples of it
• 45:54out on view in some of the patient portraits.
• 45:58Right now. So we can consider
• 46:01the way that even specialized
• 46:03medical photography has drawn on,
• 46:04but also diverged from the visual conventions
• 46:08of the 19th century bourgeois portrait.
• 46:11We can attend to the issues that they
• 46:14raise around privacy and voyeurism,
• 46:16given the intimacy of access
• 46:18to so many bodies that we are
• 46:20offered on screen here today,
• 46:22outside in the exhibition and
• 46:23in the collection as a whole.
• 46:26Through all of these images,
• 46:27but usually often most often without
• 46:30any clear indication of patient consent.
• 46:34We can attend to the ways that these
• 46:36images might be seen to dehumanize or
• 46:38objectify or reduce people to body parts,
• 46:40but they also might be seen to
• 46:42to affirm the humanity and the
• 46:44individuality of their subjects.
• 46:51These images also, I think,
• 46:52raise important questions about power,
• 46:55representation and the photographic
• 46:56encounter in the clinic or the studio.
• 46:59So every photograph in the Burns collection,
• 47:02no matter how seemingly kind of
• 47:04impersonal and kind of expertly medical,
• 47:07is in some way a trace of a social encounter.
• 47:10And it's important not to forget.
• 47:12That we can imagine outward,
• 47:14beyond what is directly visible in
• 47:16the image to things and people and
• 47:19interactions that we know must have been
• 47:21there for that photograph to exist at all.
• 47:23Such as the presence of a
• 47:25photographer in the room.
• 47:27Sometimes this may have been a physician,
• 47:28or a lab technician,
• 47:30or some other person associated
• 47:31with the medical setting.
• 47:33But more often than not it was
• 47:35a professional photographer who
• 47:36had learned to adapt their studio
• 47:38portraiture skills for a new client.
• 47:39And of course, the client is the
• 47:41medical institution or physician,
• 47:42not the patient.
• 47:46We can also think outwards toward the
• 47:48setting in which the photograph was taken,
• 47:50which sometimes may have been
• 47:51in the clinic or the hospital,
• 47:53or in a makeshift studio
• 47:54attached to the clinic,
• 47:55or in an operating theater where
• 47:57lines of sight and privileged
• 47:58positions of maximal visibility
• 48:00were carefully controlled.
• 48:05Had some intentions that I changed
• 48:06my mind about this afternoon.
• 48:09So in whatever physical and
• 48:12cultural space of encounter
• 48:13medical photographs were made,
• 48:16we can be sure that complex relationships
• 48:18were unfolding in that space,
• 48:20relations of power and agency,
• 48:22of exploitation and profit,
• 48:24but also of care and healing.
• 48:27Medical photographs are
• 48:28always an opportunity,
• 48:29not just for close looking at the image,
• 48:31but for refocusing beyond the image
• 48:33on the social and material practices
• 48:35through which they were made.
• 48:37Thank you.
• 48:54So I recognize we have a few
• 48:56minutes left for questions.
• 48:58My plan was to ask maybe one
• 49:00question of both Chitra and Stanley.
• 49:03I'll just because that's who I call you,
• 49:04what I call you and then to go from there.
• 49:08But I wanted to also make sure
• 49:10that we had opportunity for,
• 49:11for our audience to ask questions.
• 49:14Does anyone have a question
• 49:15that they'd like to ask?
• 49:18OK. I think Karen are we have the microphone?
• 49:22And right behind you then, because
• 49:23you have individuals right behind.
• 49:27Doctor Burns, do you digitize your
• 49:29photographs prior to publication,
• 49:31or are you working with analog
• 49:33versions that are photographed?
• 49:36Come up here, yeah, please.
• 49:38OK.
• 49:44That's the only time we digitize
• 49:46them is before publication.
• 49:50Otherwise it's way too much work and
• 49:51we don't know what someone wants.
• 49:53You know someone will make a request.
• 49:55You I want to picture of a sailor
• 49:57and World War One or World War 2.
• 49:59Excuse me, wearing sneakers which I did find.
• 50:02So usually photographic requests are
• 50:04very specific and they're not digitized.
• 50:07That's why I'm happy they're here.
• 50:10And for our colleagues on Zoom,
• 50:12please feel free to put your
• 50:13questions in the chat. Thank you.
• 50:14We'll take another question
• 50:15from the audience. Deborah.
• 50:19Thank you. Thank you both
• 50:21for this great evening.
• 50:23Doctor Burns, I've had the pleasure
• 50:25to work with your collections and I'm
• 50:28really appreciative that they're here.
• 50:30I wanted to ask you a little bit about
• 50:33where you got some of these images,
• 50:35you know, where do you,
• 50:36where do you find them and
• 50:37how do you acquire them?
• 50:40I removed that part of my lecture.
• 50:41I had several slides showing you the
• 50:45ever Brimfield antique shows auctions.
• 50:49Around the world,
• 50:49I showed you a picture of Pete Boxton.
• 50:51Pete Boxing was my point man.
• 50:53He lived in California.
• 50:54And so he was the man who got
• 50:57me calling up another slot.
• 51:01Photographs as you just saw,
• 51:03which is the best form of
• 51:04provenance you could ever get,
• 51:06and so I did take often pictures
• 51:09of myself getting the photographs.
• 51:11Was
• 51:12wise to think ahead. Thank you.
• 51:19We have another question.
• 51:20Let me ask a question actually
• 51:23for both Chitra and Stanley.
• 51:24How does Middlefield medical
• 51:26photography help you reflect on
• 51:28your own research or clinical work?
• 51:33That's a that's a bigger question,
• 51:35but yeah, I'd love to hear you.
• 51:38Ophthalmologists are.
• 51:41Focused on detail.
• 51:43And so photography is an important
• 51:45part of ophthalmology as it is
• 51:48in radiology and in dermatology.
• 51:50So and and sharing information.
• 51:54When you have unusual cases.
• 52:01Yeah. So I mentioned earlier that whoops,
• 52:02that medical photography wasn't it wasn't
• 52:05and isn't my kind of research specialty.
• 52:08And so I I was trained in history
• 52:10of science focusing on the history
• 52:12of the physical sciences and and and
• 52:15came to photography thinking about.
• 52:17The kind of intersection of photography and
• 52:21and physics and astronomy and chemistry.
• 52:24And I think that when I started
• 52:26kind of broadening out from my kind
• 52:29of narrow research topic,
• 52:30the kind of thing that you are supposed
• 52:32to do as a graduate student and try to
• 52:34think more broadly about the place of
• 52:36photography in kind of like broader
• 52:38fields of knowledge about the natural
• 52:41and the human world and body. Kind of.
• 52:45It really helped me understand.
• 52:49I guess a key element of kind,
• 52:51because there's often a kind of
• 52:53triumphalist story about photography that,
• 52:54you know, before we couldn't see in
• 52:56this way or we couldn't capture the
• 52:57sort of image and then a certain kind
• 52:59of technical advance was made and
• 53:00then we were finally able to do it.
• 53:02And what I what I've come to understand
• 53:05through research and history of science
• 53:06and history of medicine on photography
• 53:08is how kind of contingent to the
• 53:10specific subcultures of knowledge
• 53:11the take up of photography is.
• 53:13So Stanley mentioned kind of the
• 53:15need to kind of observe and record
• 53:17intense detail as being a key.
• 53:19Kind of use for photography in his practice.
• 53:22And I think that's something that we see
• 53:24from the history of medical photography
• 53:25that in you know depending on whether
• 53:27your clinical practice is about observing,
• 53:29observing minute detail or
• 53:32tracking change over time,
• 53:34certain aspects of the medium and the things
• 53:36that it allows become useful to you are not.
• 53:39And so the kind of uneven take up in
• 53:41different kind of fields of medicine
• 53:43and in different fields of science
• 53:45I think really comes down to that.
• 53:47Yeah.
• 53:50Oh, we have another question,
• 53:51another question. Thanks.
• 53:56OK. Let's go ahead. So umm.
• 54:05From one.
• 54:09I'm not sure this is particularly
• 54:11a question, but I'll.
• 54:12I'll give it to Doctor Burns's
• 54:15photographs in your waiting room.
• 54:17Doctor burns.
• 54:21And just mentioning that you would.
• 54:28You know, you know, you were often
• 54:31responding to medical emergencies 24/7,
• 54:33so these photographs patients would come
• 54:34in and see the photographs as they came
• 54:36into the waiting room, correct? Yes.
• 54:40The photograph that we all talk about was
• 54:43I had a picture of because my waiting
• 54:45room had a wide variety of photographs.
• 54:48They were or they weren't all medical.
• 54:51They were the history of photography.
• 54:53One of the pictures I had
• 54:56was taken on August 26th,
• 54:581944 when the Americans came into Paris,
• 55:02or maybe in the 25th, sorry.
• 55:04And it was a picture of the tanks rolling
• 55:07into plastic concord Nazi snipers had
• 55:09hidden away and they were shooting.
• 55:12At the people and one of my patients
• 55:16got hysterical about it because
• 55:18he was in the mob.
• 55:20That they were shooting at and he had never,
• 55:23of course, seen the picture.
• 55:24And you never know when you're out in the
• 55:27public when the picture is being taken.
• 55:29And here you know he had seen this
• 55:31picture and he couldn't identify himself,
• 55:34but he knew some of the other people
• 55:36that he was standing near in the
• 55:38mob in Paris in August of 1944.
• 55:42So I kept my patients in
• 55:43line. That's what that says, too.
• 55:47Absolutely. Uh, I think I just
• 55:49want to ask one final question.
• 55:52I think for you, Stanley,
• 55:52actually, as a medical doctor,
• 55:54what advice would you give to individuals
• 55:56who are interested in developing
• 55:58their own collections of materials,
• 55:59whether it be photographs, books,
• 56:01or their own personal archives?
• 56:05There's only one bit of advice,
• 56:07and very few people take it.
• 56:10And that is you have to
• 56:12label your photographs.
• 56:13You have to say who's in
• 56:15it and when it was taken.
• 56:17I have had my career documented since
• 56:20the 1960s when I was in medical school.
• 56:22I was a photographic editor
• 56:24of for our class in journal.
• 56:27But all my photographs had documented
• 56:29and so that would that's really a big
• 56:32deal because the chronology of where,
• 56:35when, how. Is very,
• 56:37very important.
• 56:39And standard. There's one last question.
• 56:42So it says in the chat, when would
• 56:45doctor Burns place the end of medical
• 56:47photography as a collectible product?
• 56:51I guess yesterday.
• 56:55I wish the medical school in 1960.
• 56:58That was sixty years ago.
• 57:00We don't know in the future of what's
• 57:02important and what's not important.
• 57:04Like those great doctors taking
• 57:06the pictures themselves,
• 57:07X raying having a picture taken,
• 57:09X-ray and that kidney.
• 57:12If you look at it,
• 57:12you never know also how your
• 57:14photograph is going to be interpreted.
• 57:16I'm doing work now on my Holocaust
• 57:19collection and I have over 100
• 57:21Nazi soldier private albums.
• 57:23They were so proud of their work,
• 57:25but the work is now evidence against them.
• 57:30Well, then I think I'm going to
• 57:32wrap up our section here again.
• 57:34I mean, leave it on that note.
• 57:35I mean, come on. Anyway,
• 57:38thank you all for joining us.
• 57:40Thank you Chitra Stanley for the
• 57:42wonderful presentations and conversation.
• 57:44If you have any further questions,
• 57:45you're welcome to to
• 57:47speak with us afterwards.
• 57:48And thank you all for joining us.
• 57:54Thank you to our zoom crowd too.