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Conversely, historians of photography and medical
photography debate technical issues, as well as locating
and describing the ‘fi rst’ clinical photographs and or
presenting them as a seamless chronological narrative.
Creating such a linear account involves leaping from one
medical speciality to another, ignoring the possibility
that each discipline such as orthopaedics, dermatology,
etc., may have its own particular ancestry, infl uences
and development.
It was not until 1961 that the fi rst survey dedicated to
the history of medical photography was written by Ali-
son Gernsheim, and published in two parts (Gernsheim
1961). Since then the analysis of medical and clinical
photography has thrown up dedicated historians of
medical photography, resulting in attempts to go beyond
identifying the fi rst medical and clinical photographs,
creating a wider debate on how they can be interpreted
and used within historical research. One of the most
prolifi c writers on this subject is Dr Stanley B. Burns.
In 1988 Burns, together with Joel-Peter Witkin, an art-
ist and photographer, published A Morning’s Work, a
selection of nineteenth-century medical photographs
from the Burns Archive (Burns 1998).
The work of historians of art and visual culture relat-
ing to photography has arguably had the most impact on
the way historians of medicine have considered clinical
photographs. Many theories derived from the history of
art and visual culture have debated the artistic-scientifi c-
mechanical nature of photography. There is a vast body
of literature, which aims to encourage us to ‘look’ in
particular ways.
John Tagg argues that medical-clinical photography
was a representational act rather than a creative under-
taking (Tagg 1988). Tagg applies Michel Foucault’s
theories concerning observation, realism and objectivity
in his exploration of the clinical gaze in nineteenth-cen-
tury photography. He argues that technical advances,
which occurred during the mid-to-late nineteenth
century, facilitated the expansion of photography into
medicine (Tagg 1984). It was within new institutions
of knowledge, such as the hospital, that photography
was to become perceived and accepted as a form of
truth and evidence. Tagg’s argument implies that the
medical profession as a whole accepted photography
as a medium of truth. However, in reality there was no
consensus. Arguments for and against the use of pho-
tography were regularly reported in nineteenth-century
medical periodicals such as the British Medical Journal
(BMJ) and The Lancet.
The historian of art, Martin Kemp, encourages us to
look at the details in medical photographs with a more
discerning eye. Kemp’s work has done much to stimulate
debate concerning the history of photography (Kemp,
1988). He argues that individuals were faced with a
series of photographic choices, which included staging,
exposure and printing. By analysing each of these crite-
ria one can gain insight into ‘accessory and contextual
information’ (Kemp 1988, 123). Kemp suggests that
the inclusion of details, such as the patient’s clothes,
are medically, but not socially, redundant. The border
information in an image contributes to an understanding
of the practice of medical photography. Kemp describes
such details as ‘accessory images.’ It is the posing of
the patient, clothes, and setting which refl ect both ‘con-
scious and unconscious choices’ of the photographer.
He is keen to point out that ‘it was not so much that
any doctor could simply become a photographer from
the fi rst, special skills and knowledge were involved in
the production of photographs of the desired technical
quality but rather that a layer of artistic mediation was
eliminated’ (Kemp 1988, 123).
Integrating images into historical research poses
many problems for historians of medicine. As previ-
ously mentioned, Daniel Fox and Christopher Lawrence
alerted us to potential pitfalls, such as presenting images
in the form of ‘coffee table books’ or simply reaffi rming
what has already been said in the accompanying text
(Fox & Lawrence 1988, 6).
Many previous studies have been content with pre-
senting a visual and seamless chronological narrative
of medical-clinical photography, irrespective of its
local contexts of production, use and circulation. The
contextual approach, emphasizes the need to analyze
and relate images to their local contexts of production
and circulation. This approach can be taken further by
expressing visually the narratives that exist between
photographs, images, text and artifacts. This not only
encourages image-based research, but presents the re-
sults in a convincing, discursive and creative way.
Paula Summerly
See also: Duchenne, Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand;
Gernsheim, Alison; Hill, David Octavius, and
Adamson, Robert; Muybridge, Eadweard James;
Calotype and Talbotype; Dry Plate Negatives:
Non-Gelatine, Including Dry Collodion; Dry
Plate Negatives: Gelatine; Cartes-de-Visite;
Chronophotography; and Photomicrography.Further Reading
Bengston, B.P., and Kuz, J.E., Photographic Atlas of Civil War
Injuries, Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens:
Otis Historical Archives. Georgia: Kennesaw Mountain
Press, 1996.
Burns, S.B. A Morning’s Work: Medical Photographs from the
Burns Archive and Collection, 1843–1939, Sante Fe, NM:
Twin Palms Publishers, 1998.
Duchenne G.B. Album de Photographies Pathologiques Com-
plémentaire du livre intitulé De l’électrisation localisée. New
York: Baillière Brothers, 1862.
——, Mécanisme de la Physionomie Humain: ou analyse électro-