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STHC-L: The Science, Technology and Health Care Archives Forum
[Previous Posting] [Next Posting] Surgical History - Wrap-up
WOW. Two dozen replies so far. You folks seem to know everything. Unfortunately, there seems to be little consensus. Some have said masks were in regular use by 1910, some said as late as WWII surgeons were operating without masks (Michael Rhode at the National Museum of Health & Medicine actually linked to a shot of army surgeons working without shirts, but I imagine that's a different discussion.) Numerous responses also argued for or against this being a staged shot, and others questioned the date given the stiff collars. What I guess this means is that I can't say a whole lot definitively about the photo, but I can outline the following: 1) Southside Hospital, the facility in question, opened in 1911 & moved from a house to a "hospital" building in 1923 2) Surgeons could reasonably have performed surgery without masks during that time frame, and might have been wearing street clothes underneath their gowns 3) High(ish) speed film was available at the time, and the shot did not _need_ to be staged 4) A low wall without partition to separate spectators was perfectly normal at the time 5) Detachable collars were still in common use until the 1930s From this, I think I can reasonably deduce that the shot was probably taken in the hospital's first "real" building, in their first "real" operating room. That wasn't around until 1923, so the date is probably about right. There's no real way to tell if the shot was during a real operation or staged, but I suppose it's not worth worrying about. My thanks to all & sundry, and it was an interesting topic to research. DS ______________________________________ Daniel Sokolow, Archives Coordinator David Taylor Archives North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System 155 Community Drive Great Neck, NY 11021 mailto:dsokolow@nshs.edu ____________________________________________________________ STHC-L - Science, Technology, and Health Care Archives Forum STHC-L@lists.ucla.edu http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sthc-l STHC-L@lists.ucla.edu STHC-L Archives -- Main Index STHC-L Archives -- 2005 Message Index |