Table of Contents

PREFACE
CHAPTER 1: THE PHYSICIAN IN PRACTICE: SUPREMECY, MD
Acting the Part
The Early Celluloid Doctor
The Specialist in Film
Cinematic Identities
It Is All About Surgeons, Isn't It?
Portraying Compassion
CHAPTER 2: THE NURSING PROFESSION: STEREOTYPE, RN
Pioneers
Innovative Caregivers
Cut from a Different Cloth
The Nurse (and often the Doctor)
Chauvinistic Tropes
And Then There Was Nurse Ratched
CHAPTER 3: HOSPITAL AND ASYLUM: CROWDED AND INSANE LIVING
The Hospital Room
Bricks and Mortar
Not all Hospitals are the Same
The Asylum
Haunting places
Abysmal places
CHAPTER 4: EPIDEMICS: KILLERS AND CRIPPLERS
Infections through History
Tragic Misfortunes
Killer Outbreaks and Other Fantasies
The 20th Century Epidemics
Poliomyelitis on Screen
AIDS on Screen
CHAPTER 5: DISEASED AND DISABLED: A LANDSCAPE OF SUFFERING
Diseases in Cinema
How Much Time Do I Have, Doctor?
Senses Lost
Unable To See
Unable To Hear
Unable To Feel
Unable To Taste
Aging and Frailty
An Erasing Mind
CHAPTER 6: MENTAL ILLNESS: CRAZED, HISSY FITS AND A COUCH
Weimar Kino and Dr Caligari
When Freud and Psychoanalysis Came Along
Cinematic Psychopathology
Labelling Personalities
Wired Differently
Maniacal and Murderous
War and Wounded without Wounds
A Crazy Side Effect
Socially Awkward
Wired Differently
CHAPTER 7: ADDICTED: THE LAST LEGAL DRUGS
Live By Example
To the Brim
Smooth Smoking
From Den to Hospital to Street
CHAPTER 8: TRANSPLANTATION: A SECOND CHANCE
Stumbling and Rejecting
Transplantation Horror
Transplantation Foibles
Who Receives? Who Matches?
Metal to Flesh
Transplantation with Love
CHAPTER 9: DEATH AND DYING: GOOD, BAD AND ASSISTED
The Good Death
The Bad Death
The Assisted Death
Posthumous
The Morgue
Left Behind in Grief
CHAPTER 10: MEDICAL VIOLATIONS:A LINE CROSSED
Cinema of Nazi Physicians
Forced Sterilization
The Tuskegee Study
Vivisection
Lobotomy
Psychological Experiments
CHAPTER 11: GROTESQUES: UNWANTED AND ABANDONED
Exhibit the Revolting
Misshapen
An Odd Face
The Elephant Man
The Neurology of Frankenstein's Creature
CHAPTER 12: ACTIVISM AND MEDICINE: ANGERED AND AGGRAVATED
Woeful Healthcare
First Do No Harm?- an American Story
First Do No Harm? -a British Story
AIDS Activism
Big Pharma
The Abortion Debate
The Vaccination Debate
CHAPTER 13: EPILOGUE: MEDICINE IN CINEMA THROUGH THE AGES
Themes and Tropes
Defining Decades
That's Not All, Folks
Closing Credits
FILMOGRAPHY
GLOSSARY OF MEDICAL TERMS

About the Author

Eelco Wijdicks is Professor of Neurology at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester Minnesota, and Associate Professor of the History of Medicine. He has written on film in Neurology, JAMA Neurology, Neurology Today, The Lancet Neurology and Mayo Clinic Proceedings. His book Neurocinema: When Film Meets Neurology was published in 2015.

Reviews

"The book provides a valuable source of academic information for historians and all those healthcare professionals interested in film." -- Anjna Harrar , British Society for the History of Medicine
"This book is fascinating and outstanding and makes an excellent example of the crucial role that the medical humanities have in educating the public on medical issues. Likewise, it neatly underscores the vital role that cinema plays in shaping public views of the medical practice." -- Raquel Medina, PhD, Aston University, Social History of Medicine
"This is a unique piece in the current panorama of medico-historical literature, not only by its topic, but by its approach of going beyond first-degree reading of the movies, its investigation of the rationale of the realizations and ways directors created their scripts and conceived their actors, and also the modes of interpretation of the movies and by the cast. It is a dissection of movie images penetrated into the body of society and its mental image of
medicine-the image of an image. A very interesting project!" -- Alain Touwaide, PhD (The Huntington), Doody's
"A big, sweeping survey of the films that throughout the history of the cinema have touched on diseases and afflictions, every imaginable medical trope and theme, from silents to modern times, classic titles as well as forgotten rarities, with fascinating nuggets of research and intelligent commentary sprinkled throughout a text that is never less than lively."
-- Patrick McGilligan, author of Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light
"How does medicine look through the lens of filmmakers? CINEMA, MD explores the many links between the art of film and the art of medicine in an entertaining and easy-to-grasp way. For an audience of millions, movies have strongly established optical and social images of doctors and diseases, emergencies and epidemics, magical interventions and malpractice. In 13 thematic chapters, this remarkable book reviews more than 400 carefully selected fiction films and
documentaries from the silent era up to the present. The reader can expect a unique, well documented and fascinating dialogue between a cinematic view of medical progress and historical interpretation
of the healing art. In short: A must-have for health professionals and students interested in medical humanities, media scholars and critics."
--Axel Karenberg, MD, PhD, Professor at the Institute for the History of Medicine and Medical Ethics, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
"Clearly a labor of love, Dr. Wijdicks' engaging study of the complex representations of medicine in the cinema both enlightens and entertains. Although doctors generally score well in polls of public trust, film directors do not always agree. This volume tackles the heroic doctor but also more sinister practitioners, including a powerful section on the Nazi period. It invites its readers to view films actively and offers the critical tools to undertake this
stimulating exercise."
--William F. Bynum, PhD, FRCP, Author and Historian of Medicine and Science
"Dr. Wijdicks has produced an incredibly wide ranging and thought-provoking analysis of the ways in which medicine and been used and abused on the silver screen since the dawn of cinema. From the rise and fall of the once God like surgeon, to cinematic treatments of death and dying, movies both inform and reflect contemporary thinking. With the careful selection of films to illustrate each chapter, Wijdicks provides a witty and fascinating insight into the ways
in which medicine has shaped society over the past 100 years."
--Sallie Baxendale, PhD, FBPS, Consultant Neuropsychologist, Department of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy, Institute of Neurology, University College London, England