TY  -  JOUR
TI  -  Projecting soldiers’ repair: the ‘Great War’ lantern and the Royal Society of Medicine
  AU -Jason Bate
PY  -  2020
VL  - 
IS  - Spring 2020
KW - education
KW - facial surgery
KW - First World War
KW - lantern slides
KW - lantern technology
KW - media practices
KW - medical photography
KW - Royal Society of Medicine

AB - This article addresses how and why the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM), as a hub of research and education and with its multidisciplinary membership, became active in lantern projection, circulation and popularisation as a scientific teaching practice in First World War Britain. From the interactions it fostered during dialogue to its mobilising of surgeons’ visual experiences and related photographic practices in the facial wards, the article considers how and why the projection services that were made available at the RSM between 1914 and 1919 facilitated collaborative and contested debates in immediate exchanges of information and thus early intervention. Despite the lantern and the camera being referred to in conjunction with each other during this historical moment, the role of photography via magic lantern technology has not been the subject of an in-depth study. During the war, the lantern was received as an extension of photography and toward successful simulation of the spatial and temporal contingency of human vision. This article charts aspects of the nature and body-machine characteristics of these technical innovations in a period of change and transition for both surgical practice and visual technologies in medicine. Overall, the article will argue that the RSM was a major institutional catalyst for First World War uses of the lantern in surgery, producing modern medical thinking that wished to use the camera apparatus in new ways.

N1 - Harry Baldwin noted that French and American surgeons also presented their findings at this meeting, and brought along valuable clinical material such as photographs and albums, skiagrams (X-rays), models and dental splints from France, to demonstrate the benefits of the dental appliances being discussed and contribute to the group’s knowledge of the subject. Drs Hayes and Hotz came over from Paris to present at this meeting in person, Dr Roy sent a remarkable collection of photographs, and Dr Pont contributed an album of photographs of cases ‘before and after’ treatment and accompanied with a typewritten illustrated typescript on the methods employed (1916a, pp 64–65).
N1 - Several Red Cross surgeons, including Baldwin, travelled to France in 1914 and 1915 to study the conditions under which British soldiers with face and jaw injuries were being treated in specialist centres: in Paris, Dr Hippolyte Morestin at the Val de Grâce Hospital, Albéric Pont at a jaw surgery unit in Lyon, Léon Imbert in Marseilles, Leon Dufourmentel in Châlons-sur-Marne, Maurice Virenque in Le Mans, Fernand Lemaïtre in Vichy, Emile-Jules Moure in Bordeaux, Charles Auguste Valadier in Boulogne, and Fred Albee and Varastad Kazanjian in Neuilly. Visits from other surgeons, sometimes travelling long distances, testify to the cooperation that existed among countries and the everyday experiences of surgeons. A sense of collaboration emerged across facial hospitals, adding incentive to innovate and develop these experimental surgeries (Baldwin, 1916a, pp 63–120).

N1 - The production of this form of media had multiple actors working toward an abridged article for its wider readership. The meetings were transcribed at the society, they did not include everything that was spoken during each presentation or group discussion, nor in exactly the way it was delivered. Pauses and non-verbal utterances were removed during copyediting, and grammar was corrected, although complex technical statements were not always paraphrased for clarity. Each speaker was invited to submit a revised copy of his paper to the editorial committee for furthering editing and proofreading prior to publication. The extended discussions that followed speakers’ papers were often lively debates and each participant would not have had time to write down their individual comments while these exchanges were going on, or to record everything that was said. A transcriptionist was present in the meetings and went through the process of listening and typing exactly what was heard.
N1 - For a broader analysis of the relation between Victorian popular visual culture, education and the lantern, see Kember, J, 2009, Marketing Modernity: Victorian Popular Shows and Early Cinema (Exeter: University of Exeter Press); Kember, J, Plunkett, J and Sullivan, J A (eds), 2012, Popular Exhibitions, Science and Showmanship, 1840–1910 (London: Pickering & Chatto)
N1 - The epidiascopes, microscopes and other scientific apparatus owned by the RSM were all ‘kept in good repair and such repairs as have been required from time to time have been made good by the Insurance Company’ (1916-20, Finance and General Purposes Committee Minutes of the Royal Society of Medicine, 3, p 69. Accession/class mark H27. From the library of the Royal Society of Medicine, ref RSM/CM/9/3, Shelf B3 Box 2015/91).
N1 - The discussion that followed was so lively that the meeting had to be adjourned until 6 March 1916, so that the British members and fellows could continue the debate and foster collaboration (1914-20, Section on odontology. ‘Adjourned discussion on war injuries of the jaw and face’, Minutes of Council of the Royal Society of Medicine, p 212).
N1 - To deliver a successful performance it was not enough for the speaker to project a set of slides onto the screen, to let them be seen one by one by those in the room and simply announcing each slide. The success of the projections lay in the surgeon’s skill of presenting the slide, to well-coordinate his ideas with the projected images, as well as to work in synchrony with the lanternist to change each slide when required, to allow the members and fellows to see and hear properly without technical interference.
N1 - When Payne’s article with the photographs finally appeared in the Proceedings, the verbal and textual argument had already been made in the meeting, so the emphasis of the article was primarily on the images. Positioned at the centre of the page and just below the opening description of the injuries, the images were an important frame of reference for the group discussion of the patients. The conversation positioned the images on the page and was reproduced to reinforce the validity of the debate. For the RSM, the reproduction of a photographic slide was essential to the judgement of the scientific evidence presented in the Proceedings, as long as the readers could attribute the photograph as being from the section meeting (Payne, 1916b, pp 106–108 & pp 116–118).
N1 - Aymard addressed his failures over a 12-month period at Sidcup. Whilst flaps and methods for reproducing the complete nose had in the past been fully written up in most surgical textbooks, the causes for failure were hardly ever dealt with, and details of the work was deficient (1917a, p 888).
N1 - In 1900, the Lumière Laboratories in Lyon were the first to manufacture ‘extra-rapid’ glass plate negatives. By this time, the Lumière factories were the largest manufacturers of photographic products in Europe, second only to George Eastman in New York.
N1 - Cole was invited to take part in this discussion by the RSM. After this paper was read before the society on 3 December 1917 the article was subsequently published in The Lancet on 5 January 1918 (Cole, 1918b, pp 11–15).
N1 - This was a longstanding technique of reproducing black and white lantern slides by copying glass plate negatives on to glass plate positives by photographic means. Slides could be made from negatives by contact or by reduction. The processes comprised the following steps: using the contact process, in the darkroom, a lantern plate would be placed against the back of the negative plate, both of which were placed in a glass-fronted printing frame. The frame was then placed either in direct sunlight or under an enlarger, creating a new, direct exposure of the positive image. The final stage was processing using a developer and fixer in separate dishes to print out the image, then fixing and washing the plate to remove unexposed emulsion and any chemical by-products. Alternatively, the reduction process reproduced the glass plate negative by rephotographing it in the camera on to a lantern plate. The practitioner would take ordinary bromide lantern plates and load them into the camera. He would place the negative from which slides were to be made against a window so that the light from outside would illuminate the plate from behind. He then photographed the backlit negative with the camera using a small f-stop to ensure a short exposure time, creating a direct exposure on to the lantern plate in the camera (Hasluck, 1901, p 133-135).
N1 - Dr Albert Norman, as photographer and album maker, assembled the two albums shortly after the King George V Military Hospital closed in May 1919. The albums were used as reference sources for training medical officers of the Royal Army Dental Corps for several years before being donated to the Wellcome Library in the 1980s. RAMC Muniment Collection, Wellcome Library, London, RAMC 760
N1 - The cost and labour involved in reproducing photographs in the Proceedings was expensive, and although surgeons in meetings and lectures used a large number of slides relatively few of these were photomechanically printed in the articles. Due to wartime economic shortages and restrictions, the printers of the Proceedings, Messrs. Bale, wrote twice to the society seeking financial assistance to offset an increase in wages and printing materials. By March 1916, the firm was printing the Proceedings at a loss. The council granted a request for a 15 per cent increase. Then, in July 1917, the printers wrote again to the society requesting a further increase of five per cent owing to additional printing and material costs. After consideration, this was also agreed (1916-20, Finance and General Purposes Committee Minutes of the Royal Society of Medicine, 3, p 209; and pp 85–87. Accession/class mark H27. From the library of the Royal Society of Medicine, ref RSM/CM/9/3, Shelf B3 Box 2015/91).
N1 - This note regarding the cost of the illustration of Hett’s cases of rhinoplasty was typed at the bottom of the page, under the heading ‘Illustrations for ‘‘Proceedings’’’, and signed off by James Donelan (1907-22, Laryngological section. ‘A meeting of the council of the section of laryngology on 14 February 1919’, Minutes of Council of the Royal Society of Medicine, p 242).
PB - The Science Museum Group
 
SN -  2054-5770
LA -  eng
DO -  10.15180/201307
UR -  https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/projecting-soldiers-repair/
T2 -  Science Museum Group Journal