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Show 4 -1 THE MOVIES DO WAR WORK By Frederic J. Haskin. 4 : ! ! f WASHINGTON. A new and unique moving picture concern has recently been organized here. Some of the most important im-portant men in the moving picture in- 1 d'ustry are working as its camera men; the foremost American scientists are its stars, and during the short period it has been in operation it has produced some of the most remarkable pictures ever registered reg-istered on film. It ia known as "Gorgafl Film company." The surgeon general has gone into the moving picture business, and the whole army medical department has gone in with him. With the help of various officers offi-cers and privates who formerly owned, operated and worked for large moving picture companies, a moving picture plant has been installed in a building near the army medical headquarters, a government film agency has been established, and films at the rate or 15S.O00 feet a week are being produced for the entertainment and education of the army. Before they are shipped to the cantonments, canton-ments, the films are tried out in a long, dark and badlv ventilated room that has all the atmosphere of a commercial moving mov-ing picture theater. Here medical officers, offi-cers, the heads of government departments, depart-ments, congressional committees, and even the secretary of war, occasionally drop in and ask to see the pictures. One of these, which was being vun off the other day for the benefit of some visitors, showed an operation on a young private for the removal of a hernia. In case 'you have never had one, you may not know that a hernia is a part of the intestines which has become loosened and projects through one's inner lining in an annoying manner, causing a large lump to appear on the smooth surface of the abdomen. In this government film, which is of the "animated cartoon" kind, you are shown exactly how it happens. First, with a few broad strokes, the artist sketches an outline of the . human form as it normally is. Next appears a sketch of the interior, showing the intestines, in-testines, looking like coils of lead pipe, and intersected by arteries and blood vessels. Immediately one of these coils begins to slip out of place and drop down a couple of inches the hernia has occurred. oc-curred. Then the intestines fade but again, and the next picture shows you how the hernia looks on the outside. Comes now the operation. A knife suddenly floats into the picture and makes an incision about an inch above the hernia, being careful to avoid the main artery of the intestines and the larger blood vessels. The incision is swathed with some sort of an antiseptic mixture by a hand that appears In the right-hand corner of the picture, while from all four corners ..appear animated forceps which seize the skin about the incision and hold it firmly back. Again t,he hand appears, this time w-ith a peculiar pe-culiar instrument resembling a nut-pick, with which the recalcitrant intestine is captured and pushed back into place. The rest of the operation is finished in a few seconds by a needle and thread which float into tbe flim and sew up the inner lining and the outside skin. At this point the real photograph of the private undergoing un-dergoing this operation is flashed on the screen, showing him on the operating table, with the doctor and nurse bending bend-ing over him, and the young man himself him-self grinning and giving a military salute. sa-lute. The energetic condition of the patient after this operation is accounted for bv the fact that it has been performed with a local anesthetic and not ether. Since the war, German patent rights are not observed in this country, and American surgeons are now using the German local anesthetic, novocaine, with gratifying results. re-sults. Tn the middle of this operation, the young private smiled at his nurse a nd said: "I wonder what the folks in 'Frisco are doing now." While the operation for hernia is a comparatively simple one, the value of such a picture showing a difficult, operation opera-tion may readily be seen. Medical textbooks text-books are very good in describing the theory of an operation, but they cannot show the exact technique. To the smAll town doctor, for example, a moving plc-r ture of one of the Mayo brothers performing per-forming an operation for cancer would be ten times as instructive as a text -book setting forth the theory of the thing. Indeed, according to the army medical corps, a moving picture of an operation is better than a sight of the operation itself, it-self, since the retina of the eye cannot possibly retain the numerous impressions photographed by the camera; while the animated cartoon which eliminates all unnecessary detail and focuses the attention at-tention on the important points is the last word in medical instruction. The "animated cartoonist" of the army medical corps is Sergeant Paul Terry', "who formerly ran the "Animated Weekly" and built the camera for the Bray cartoons. car-toons. When hfi first entered the army he had no medical knowledge whatsoever, whatso-ever, but he attracted the attention of the medical officers by the accurate sketches he was able 16 make of their operations. Colonel William Owen, in charge of the army movie plant under Surgeon General Gorgas, believing that the young man possessed unusual ability, decided to send him to Johns-Hopkins University to study under Max Brodel. Now the Terry surgical cartoons are one of the most important products of the army medical corps, and so expert has the artist become that he can place his hand inside a wound and draw an accurte picture pic-ture of its interior- In cases whern a patient cannot be photographed under X-ray Terry is always called into consultation. con-sultation. The "Gorgas Film company" does not confine itself to surgical films, however. Many scenarios are written for the sole benefit of the soldier, and are teaching lessons that the finest vocal eloquence has failed to "got over." One of these, entitled "Fit to Fight," deals with the physiological aspects of venereal disease. Another film shows the soldier how to take care of his feet how to avoid having hav-ing flat feet and trench foot, and the correct motion tn walking. It comprises, as one lieutenant put it, two thousand feet of foot. Still another deals with the human digestion, and in this the stomach is actually shown digesting and eliminating food, this interesting process having been photographed by one of the army moving picture camera men while a patient was under X-ray. ' In addition to making films for Health propaganda, the moving picture division of the army medical corps has been of great service to the ordnance department. depart-ment. Moving pictures of high-power guns have been taken, showing just how the shells are expelled, while the camera has proved an unerring discoverer of defective rifles. Not long a-jo a reel was made for the American gas division, showing a number of troops adjusting their gas masks, in which ft appeared that two-thirds of them were making mnnv superfluous motions. A picture of a soldier adjusting his mask with the least possible lost motion was then made; the men were made to study the picture' and this set of motions, which adjusts a man's gas mask in less than six seconds, sec-onds, Is now incorporated in the regular military drill. The moving picture camera has also proved extremely valuable in avfatlon tests. Since Americans have taken un flying, many accidents have occurred which have never been explained. For instance, there have been cases where aviators have suddenly lost control of their machines for some inexpjicnhln reason where they have used the wrong fOOl pedals or the wrong hand motions. This mystery has now been worked out on a physiological basis, with the aid of the moving picture camera. One test in which tho camera Is used Is to place a man in a revolving chair and turn him around quickly. There la n fluid that runs from the hraln coll to the ear and which causes the eve to flicker. This eye-flicker' is photographed and the resultant film shows just how mav flickers there were to the mlnufo When the flicker reaches a certain frequency. fre-quency. It is known that a man lOiea his equilibrium. The camera thus accurately ac-curately measures his fitness for fly. A Nna! test with the camera Is made of the aviator after he has graduated from the aviation school and la actually running his machine. Thin test Is made bv Sergeant Frank Godwin, formerly president of the Godwin moving picture company who has Invented a special camera 'for the purpose. Strapped in to the aeroplane and holding Ma oWMja S above hla head he photographs the movements move-ments or tho aviator as be ascends In a spiral, so that every error m hi hap-dllng hap-dllng of the controls Is surely detected. Screen nt Godwin is only one of the military staff that waa once, fMMM W the moving picture industry, i a pea In Tom Evans, who is Colonel Owen s ngl it -ha. nd man. had his own company befoic en teri,,K the army, and under h m is I.leu tenant Robert Koss, who. had many years of experience will, a lurgc western film comic i v The army medical corps has ,N pinred Mary Plckford's camera ,',,, i.e. Androy; Oliver Cromwell. ' be with William Fan.,,.,.; ami anv others who have grled unanmioJs In the opinion that the army medical films have the C0mmercl stuff beaten to a frazzle In poll t Uve Inj tercst. They are proud of theli work and 'well they may he. 1'or,''1 the end of this war the surgeon general U ; going to have a fHhi library no less remarkable than hla prMd library. Which la the greatest o its Wml In the world. .' ? |