{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,14]],"date-time":"2025-05-14T04:18:41Z","timestamp":1747196321409,"version":"3.40.5"},"reference-count":34,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"12","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,21]],"date-time":"2022-12-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1671580800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:p>This paper uses extensive database research, film viewing and literature review to show how the field of surgery was staged in the early days of film history. It can be shown that\u2013although surgical medicine was a subject in transition, and many scientific breakthroughs (anesthesia und antisepsis) made surgery less painful and more complication-free\u2013filmmakers still frequently resorted to horror memories of the past and created a questionable, or ambivalent image of the surgeon, sometimes as extreme as the \u201clunatic with a scalpel\u201d stereotype, blurring the line between genius and madness. But there were also positive staging\u2019s: The surgical intervention was often captured on the screen as a last resort for clinically hopeless cases, with the surgeon often presented as a \u201cdeus ex machina\u201d, the savior out of nowhere. Other specialties, however, such as plastic surgery, were mostly positively dramatized, which reveals a stark contrast to research about the representation of the field in the sound film era. A view at the fields of neurosurgery and (selectively) opthalmo-surgery rounds out the panorama of forty-one surgical films. In summary, it is shown that the early surgical film depicts the specialty and the surgeon in a highly ambivalent way, from savior to monster thereby reflecting one of the most significant transitions in the history of surgery and showing us what image was presented to the public\u2013and thus to potential patients\u2013in the movie theaters.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0279422","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,21]],"date-time":"2022-12-21T18:29:36Z","timestamp":1671647376000},"page":"e0279422","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["The two sides of the scalpel: The polarizing image of surgery in early cinema"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"17","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1521-6360","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Dennis","family":"Henkel","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,21]]},"reference":[{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0279422.ref001","first-page":"139","article-title":"The construction of disease in the history of film. An analysis of the film stereotypes of epilepsy","volume":"69","author":"G. Maio","year":"2001","journal-title":"Fortschr Neurol Psychiatr"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref002","first-page":"199","volume-title":"Jahrbuch Literatur und Medizin. Band 2","author":"HJ Wulff","year":"2008"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref003","first-page":"277","volume-title":"\u201cDas ist eine alte Krankheit.\u201d Epilepsie in der Literatur","author":"G. Maio","year":"2000"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref004","first-page":"55","volume-title":"Bildst\u00f6rungen Kranke und Behinderte im Spielfilm","author":"K. Schmidt","year":"2003"},{"issue":"9","key":"pone.0279422.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1300","DOI":"10.1212\/01.wnl.0000210497.62202.e9","article-title":"The portrayal of coma in contemporary motion pictures","volume":"66","author":"EFM Wijdicks","year":"2006","journal-title":"Neurology"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref006","first-page":"61","article-title":"Medicine on the big and small screen: The portrayal of medicine in silent fiction films","author":"D. Henkel","year":"2020","journal-title":"Pharos Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Med Soc"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1093\/med\/9780190685799.001.0001","volume-title":"Cinema, MD: A History of Medicine on Screen","author":"EFM Wijdicks","year":"2020"},{"volume-title":"Neurocinema: When Film Meets Neurology","year":"2015","author":"EFM Wijdicks","key":"pone.0279422.ref008"},{"volume-title":"Silent Craving. Sucht und Drogen im Stummfilm (1890\u20131931)","year":"2019","author":"D. Henkel","key":"pone.0279422.ref009"},{"issue":"19","key":"pone.0279422.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1878","DOI":"10.1001\/jama.2020.7187","article-title":"Infectious Disease Outbreaks, Pandemics, and Hollywood-Hope and Fear Across a Century of Cinema","volume":"323","author":"W. Dehority","year":"2020","journal-title":"JAMA"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref011","unstructured":"Internet Movie Database [Internet] [cited 14 August 2022]. Available from: https:\/\/www.imdb.com."},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref012","unstructured":"Collections Search British Film Institute [Internet] [cited 14 August 2022]. Available from: http:\/\/collections-search.bfi.org.uk\/web."},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref013","unstructured":"The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures [Internet] [cited 14 August 2022]. Available from: https:\/\/aficatalog.afi.com\/."},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0279422.ref014","first-page":"69","article-title":"Eug\u00e8ne-Louis Doyen und die Anf\u00e4nge des Chirurgie-Films. Montage AV","volume":"14","author":"T. Dr Lefebvre","year":"2005","journal-title":"Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Theorie und Geschichte audiovisueller Kommunikation"},{"volume-title":"M\u00e9li\u00e8s: magie et cin\u00e9ma","year":"2002","author":"J. Malth\u00eate","key":"pone.0279422.ref015"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref016","first-page":"13","volume-title":"The Oxford History of World Cinema","author":"R. Pearson","year":"1998"},{"issue":"10","key":"pone.0279422.ref017","first-page":"970","article-title":"\"Eine Entdeckung in der Chirurgie\" 150 Jahre An\u00e4sthesie","volume":"45","author":"L Brandt","year":"1996","journal-title":"Anaesthesist"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref018","first-page":"59","volume-title":"Georges M\u00e9li\u00e8s\u2013Magier der Filmkunst. KINtop: Jahrbuch zur Erforschung des fr\u00fchen Films","author":"T. Levebvre","year":"1993"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref019","first-page":"47","volume-title":"Georges M\u00e9li\u00e8s\u2013Magier der Filmkunst. KINtop: Jahrbuch zur Erforschung des fr\u00fchen Films","author":"J. Malth\u00eate","year":"1993"},{"volume-title":"Georges M\u00e9li\u00e8s\u2013Magier der Filmkunst. KINtop: Jahrbuch zur Erforschung des fr\u00fchen Films","year":"1993","author":"T. Levebvre","key":"pone.0279422.ref020"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref021","first-page":"343","volume-title":"Krieg und Milit\u00e4r im Film des 20. Jahrhunderts","author":"M. Baumeister","year":"2003"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref022","unstructured":"American Film Institute. AFI Catalog of Feature Films the First 100 Years 1893\u20131993. WHEN LOVE WAS BLIND (1917). [Internet] [cited 14 August 2022]. Available from: https:\/\/catalog.afi.com\/Film\/16076-WHEN-LOVEWASBLIND?sid=8160a756-7c0e-4b29-9208-ea34bfe7c4f4&sr=0.18830627&cp=1&pos=1."},{"volume-title":"Anna May Wong, From Laundryman\u2019s Daughter to Hollywood Legend","year":"2004","author":"GRG Hodges","key":"pone.0279422.ref023"},{"volume-title":"Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau","year":"1990","author":"F Gehler","key":"pone.0279422.ref024"},{"issue":"25","key":"pone.0279422.ref025","first-page":"1818","article-title":"Beyond Slapstick: How Silent Movies Have Witnessed Medicine","volume":"145","author":"D Henkel","year":"2020","journal-title":"Dtsch. Med. Wochenschr"},{"edition":"3","year":"1980","author":"LH Eisner","key":"pone.0279422.ref026"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref027","unstructured":"American Film Institute. AFI Catalog of Feature Films the First 100 Years 1893\u20131993. MINNIE (1922). Los Angeles, USA. [Internet] [cited 14 August 2022]. Available at https:\/\/catalog.afi.com\/Film\/10795-MINNIE?sid=790183ca-6bca-4828-9d26-dada4e91f8c9&sr=0.16653958&cp=1&pos=0."},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0279422.ref028","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"422","DOI":"10.1097\/00006534-199402000-00035","article-title":"Plastic surgery in the cinema, 1917\u20131993","volume":"93","author":"SC Call\u00e9","year":"1994","journal-title":"Plast Reconstr Surg"},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0279422.ref029","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"427","DOI":"10.1097\/00006534-199402000-00035","article-title":"Plastic surgery in the cinema, 1917\u20131993","volume":"93","author":"SC Call\u00e9","year":"1994","journal-title":"Plast Reconstr Surg"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref030","unstructured":"American Film Institute. AFI Catalog of Feature Films the First 100 Years 1893\u20131993. THE BROKEN MASK (1928). Los Angeles, USA. [Internet] [cited 14 August 2022]. Available at https:\/\/catalog.afi.com\/Film\/1376-THE-BROKENMASK?sid=2c5a23f6-71aa-444c-9e99-e859cbd703cb&sr=9.007806&cp=1&pos=0."},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0279422.ref031","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"106","DOI":"10.1097\/SCS.0b013e31826468de","article-title":"Global plastic surgeons images depicted in motion pictures","volume":"24","author":"SJ Hwang","year":"2013","journal-title":"J Craniofac Surg"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref032","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"66","DOI":"10.1016\/j.wneu.2018.07.169","article-title":"The Surgeon in Action: Representations of Neurosurgery in Movies from the Fr\u00e8res Lumi\u00e8re to Today","volume":"119","author":"F Bernard","year":"2018","journal-title":"World Neurosurg"},{"key":"pone.0279422.ref033","first-page":"1","volume-title":"Epidemiefilm I: Der Seuchenfilm: Epidemien und virale Infektionen im Film Teil I: Filmographie 1905\u20131931 (Fr\u00fcher Seuchenfilm \/ Seuchen im Stummfilm)","author":"D. Henkel","year":"2005"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0279422.ref034","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"317","DOI":"10.1017\/mdh.2013.16","article-title":"Risk, responsibility and surgery in the 1890s and early 1900s","volume":"57","author":"C Brock","year":"2013","journal-title":"Med Hist"}],"container-title":["PLOS ONE"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0279422","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,21]],"date-time":"2022-12-21T18:29:55Z","timestamp":1671647395000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0279422"}},"subtitle":[],"editor":[{"given":"Ibrahim Umar","family":"Garzali","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"editor","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,21]]},"references-count":34,"journal-issue":{"issue":"12","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,21]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0279422","relation":{},"ISSN":["1932-6203"],"issn-type":[{"type":"electronic","value":"1932-6203"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,21]]}}}