The Patea County Press With which is incorporated The Patea Mail. MONDAY, FEB. 24, 1908. MODERN SCIENCE.

Patea Mail, Volume XXIX, 24 February 1908, Page 2

The Patea County Press With which is incorporated The Patea Mail.

MONDAY, FEB. 24, 1908. MODERN SCIENCE.

“ Be Just anil Fear Not.”

The most recent . application of the cinematograph is to the study of diseases and surgical operations. These are not for exhibition before the public but to assist in the training of medical students. In a communication to the current number of the Lancet, relating to these demonstrations, it is pointed out that diseases of the nervous system are especially well adapted for bioscopic illustration, since the abnormalities of movement can all be faithfully produced. Patients suffering from various forms of paralysis and kindred complaints were photographed in living pictures, the momentary actions of the patients being recorded at the rate of 16 per second. Naturally, to begin with, cases have been chosen where the movements have been of an exaggerated nature, but the fact that mystag‘mus can be shown is held to be a c’ever indication of what can be done with movements which are less pronounced. Given a suitable light, .it is possible to take the finest movements, and the medical gentleman who has been giving the demonstrations hopes shortly to be able to prove this by showing the movements which occur during the electrical reactions of muscles. The claims of the cinematograph in the sphere of operative surgery have not gone unnoticed, though hitherto there has been practically no serious step taken with it for teaching purposes. Dr Doyen, of Paris, iias for some years past applied the invention to record rare and difficult operations. As far hack as 1898, at the meeting of the Brutish Association, Dr Doyen spoke of this apparatus as a method of teaching and demonstrating the technique of operative surgery, and since then he has given many notable demonstrations here and on the Continent. In the teaching of hygiene and bacteriology the micro-cinematograph promises to play a prominent part. Utilised in conjunction with the cinematograph-projector, it is now possible to reproduce on the screen tire movements of various bacilli, such as those of typhoid fever, Germs and microbes are magnified from two million to seventy-six million times, according to the extent of magnification on the film, which varies from 26 to 850 diameters. The great problem which has had to be solved in the perfecting of the apparatus was the necessity of turnirg a ray of 2000 candle power on to the speck that was being magnified and photographed, and at the same time not to destroy it by the heat. Ordinary methods of preparing bacteria for miseroacopic examination fail to give an accurate idea of tho natural appearance of the organisms. The investigation _of living bacteria is rendered most difficult by their dose resemblance to the media in which they are cultivated. A combination of lenses, however, has been found which permits of accurate examination of living unstained bacteria.