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Adolf Nichtenhauser History of Motion Pictures in Medicine Collection

 Collection
Identifier: MS C 380

Abstract

Nichtenhauser's major accomplishment is the unpublished History of Motion Pictures in Medicine. This portion of the collection contains his original typescript; several volumes; pagination varies, includes illustrations.

Dates

  • Creation: circa 1950

Extent

2.1 Linear Feet (5 boxes)

Creator

Language of Materials

Collection materials primarily in English

Restrictions

Collection is not restricted. Contact the Reference Staff for information regarding access.

Copyright and Re-use Information

Copyright status is unknown. Archival collections often contain mixed copyrights; while NLM is the owner of the physical items, permission to examine collection materials is not an authorization to publish. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. It is the user's responsibility to research and understand any applicable copyright and re-publication rights not allowed by fair use. NLM does not grant permissions... to publish.

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Privacy Information

Archives and manuscript collections may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in any collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications for which the National Library of Medicine assumes no responsibility....

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Biographical Note

Adolf Nichtenhauser was born in Vienna, Austria in 1903. After studying psychology, art history, literature, and motion picture production at the Universities of Berlin, Bonn and Heidelberg, he received an M.D. degree in 1931 from the University of Vienna. Even before he began his medical career, he was intrigued by the educational and aesthetic possibilities of film. He frequently reviewed his films, studied their cultural applications, and directed... and edited his own documentary on an Austrian labor organization.

Nichtenhauser's work with film continued after his arrival in the United States in 1939, first as an assistant to the director of health education for the National Tuberculosis Association, and later as a consultant to several federal and private agencies. One agency which employed Nichtenhauser as a consultant was the Armed Forces Medical Library (later the National Library of Medicine) for whom Nichtenhauser prepared a plan to collect and preserve medical motion pictures.

Nichtenhauser's major accomplishment is the unpublished "History of Motion Pictures in Medicine." In February, 1947 Capt. Robert V. Schultz (MC) of the U.S. Navy's Audio-Visual Training Section, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, initiated a contract to Nichtenhauser for the production of a monograph on the general status of medical films. The contract was later transferred to the Office of Naval Research and broadened to encompass the history of films in medicine. The Film Library of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) became the grant administrator, although it was Nichtenhauser who continued to broaden and polish the draft. Efforts to publish the history after Nichtenhauser's death in November, 1953, were unsuccessful.

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Collection Summary

Nichtenhauser's material is divided into two different numbered collections. The typescript "History of Motion Pictures in Medicine" is found in MS C 380. Photographs received in 1991 and found in the text have been identified by figure number and filed accordingly. Photographs which could not positively be identified in the text are found at the end of the collection, as is a collection of unsorted negatives. The draft manuscript portion of the collection... is organized by chapter titles as listed in its table of contents, however two chapters from section IV are missing: Health and Related Films Since the End of World War II; Medical Films from the End of World War II to the Present. Also, the page numbering of section IV's last chapter The Lesson of the Past and the Task of the Future does not match the table of contents.

MS C 277 contains material from the original donation of 1954. It consists of correspondence, notes and other research materials assembled by Nichtenhauser during the course of his career.

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