SURGICAL ART

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26531, 5 August 1947, Page 4

SURGICAL ART

PATHOLOGICAL DRAWING DUNEDIN AIRMAN’S INTEREST WAR-TIME DEVaOPMENT An interesting parallel development of art and medicine during the war was the evolution of pathological drawing—colour sketches of wounds, incisions, and growths made during and immediately following operations. A Dtinedin airman, Flying Officer A. Moorcroft-Millar, who has just returned after a long convalescent period in Britain, studied this work when posted to an R.A.F. rehabilitation unit and he is hopeful that interest in the possibilities of this form of art may be aroused among the medical profession, in this country. A pioneer in the work was the famous artist, Anna Zinkeisen, and Flying Officer Moorcroft-Millar studied in a class under her direction at St. Martin’s School of Art, in London. It was only a small class, and it had been brought together by, Miss Zinkeisen in conjunction with the principal of the school to further this stage of medical research. Her efforts have received the approval of such eminent surgeons as Sir Hugh Cairns, of Oxford, who employs two artists in connection with his surgical work. Sir Hugh, incidentally, is planning to visit New Zealand and Australia next year. - :> Realisation of Value The value of pathological drawing is now becoming more widely realised, and artists in England' are working in most of the major London hospitals. It is recognised that their paintings will be of the greatest value to medical students and to surgeons in the exchange of surgical knowledge. Colour photography has also been put to the same purpose, but the difficulties of focus prevent complete success in this direction, and it has been found preferable to limit the use of photographs to the aiding of the artists. The photographs are able to complement their sketches for outline and detail, while greater concentration can be' given to the essential accuracy of colour. At a school in Baltimore, United States, classes in pathological art .are conducted, and many of the American students are now in Britain assisting in the progress of the work there. Little has. been done in New Zealand with this art form, although a nurse in Burwood Hospital, Christchurch, has undertaken a certain amount of work of this sort. Flying Officef Moorcroft-Millar considers that ample scope must exist for the development of pathological drawing in New Zealand, and he is hoping for an opportunity to further, his studies, in this direction. Injured in Crash Flying- Officer Moorcroft - Millar went overseas in 1942, being posted to No. 75 Squadron v after training and being commissioned in Canada. After operational work over France and Germany, he had the ill-fortune to be severely burned and injured in a Lancaster crash after a raid on Boulogne. He spent a considerable time in hospital, where the consultant plastic surgeon on the series of operations which he was undergoing was Sir Archibald Mclndoe, formerly of -Dunedin. Flying Officer Moorcroft-Millar was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his services against “buzz bombs.”