![]() ![]() The film critic Thomas Elsaesser describes biopics as “social imagery” that can serve as a “social mode of address” (1986, 18, 28). The biopic story is particularly well-suited for constructing specific images of scientists and physicians. Given the strength of the medical researcher story and the American public’s insatiable appetite for films, it is perhaps unsurprising that a 1939 Editorial in the AMA’s lay magazine, Hygeia, described that “the medical field has of late been more subject to propaganda than any other type of motion picture dramatization” (487). Furthermore, the nineteenth century became the most popular period from which to draw source material, since it was close enough to contemporary society to be familiar but distant enough to provide a substrate for awe at how far knowledge and society have come ( Babington 2005, 123). Their similarity to biographical works like Microbe Hunters made them a popular subject within which to build the story of the medical researcher ( Lederer and Parascandola 1998). The genre of the biographical picture, the ‘biopic,’ commonly appeared in cinemas across the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and described the life stories of famous persons, from criminals to presidents. Hansen remarks that during the 1930s-1940s, nearly one third of the nation entered a movie house every week ( 2009, 137). The first half of the twentieth century was also an exciting era for film as the Hollywood studio system became entrenched and the public’s voracious appetite for motion pictures grew, studios began to produce stories of medicine and science similar to those in print media. Thus, the popular media provides an interesting perspective from which to analyze the changing face of American medicine, since it not only describes the creation of a new mythos but also represents a conscious construction of an image by a newly consolidated social group and the continued concerns of the public at large. At the same time, the risks of a medical field made immoral by disinterested science continued to be a common trope found in stories of mad scientists, a trend well articulated by the social scientist Christopher Toumey when, in 1992, he wrote in his essay on mad science and moral character, “ outside the circles of academic etiquette there is another kind of critique, a kind of Gothic subterranean reality, which reveals a visceral fear of science” ( 1992, 433). With a positive image, medical researchers hoped to garner public support for research, both socially and financially ( Hansen 2009, 77). Indeed, the twentieth century also marked a centralization of power of the medical profession ( Starr 1982, 260), as institutions like the AMA began to exercise greater control on the depiction of physicians in the media ( Turow 1989, 23). Of course, the depiction of physicians and modern medical research did not occur in a vacuum. Similarly, Joseph Turow studied the image of the physician on television and how this portrayal resulted from the tug-of-war between different social forces, including the American Medical Association (AMA), television producers, and technical advisors ( 1989). Social awareness of medical stories, Hansen argues throughout his book, helped create the interest in the heroic researcher image ( 2009). Indeed, in his book From Pasteur to Polio, the historian Bert Hansen analyzed how popular printed images, including Microbe Hunters, created the stories of the medical breakthrough and extended the physician hero story into everything from news photography to comic books ( 2009). Furthermore, the book provided ample source material for future works on medical researcher heroes. With its success, Microbe Hunters helped to make the subject of the triumph of medical research an immensely popular topic in the 1920s and 1930s. As a result, de Kruif’s stories vividly described great events in the history of medical research. While it featured stories of real people, it brought them to life by creating dialogue to dramatize the details of different events. Paul de Kruif’s Microbe Hunters promulgated the image of the medical researcher and served as the foundation for future images and stories of medical breakthroughs ( 1926). With these breakthroughs, many were newly optimistic about the future of human health and the idea of the medical researcher hero. Toward the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, modern science began to explain and treat many of the most feared illnesses including diphtheria, rabies, and syphilis. The first quarter of the twentieth century was an era of great change for the image of the medical profession in America.
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