Tropical Disease Motion Pictures

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The Tropical Disease Motion Pictures Collection includes films, video recordings, and digital videocasts created from the 1920s through 2009. Most of the material was produced prior to the 1960s by federal, state, and local governments, with the rest produced by various private organizations. The collection’s contents were intended for military personnel, health professionals, and the public to address health concerns, medicine, and public health. The collection will be of interest to researchers concerned with the social, economic, and political implications of health disparities.

Highlights include:

  • • The film Cholera today: bedside evaluation and treatment, which was produced by the Public Health Service and provides a step-by-step illustration of how to treat a cholera patient with advanced symptoms;
  • Soldier from the Tropics, a World War II-era film providing instruction on malaria prevention that promotes public health as a patriotic and civic duty;
  • Scenes in West Africa, a silent film from the 1920s produced by the Rockefeller Foundation's West Africa Yellow Fever Commission. The film is part of the Wilbur A. Sawyer Papers. Sawyer worked for the commission and is best known for his role in developing a vaccine for yellow fever.
Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike. War Department official film (1944?)
Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike. War Department official film (1944?)
Schistosomiasis studies in Pernambuco (195-?)
Schistosomiasis studies in Pernambuco (195-?)
Reconnaissance for yellow fever in the Nuba Mountains, southern Sudan, 1954 (2006)
Reconnaissance for yellow fever in the Nuba Mountains, southern Sudan, 1954 (2006)