Medicine's Moving Pictures

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 TurowLeslie 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.