Neurocinematography in Pre-World War II Netherlands: The Magnus-Rademaker Collection

Historical films made by neuroscientists have shown up in several countries during past years. Although originally supposed to have been lost, we recently found a collection of films produced between 1909 and 1940 by Rudolf Magnus (1873–1927), professor of pharmacology (Utrecht) and his student Gysbertus Rademaker (1887–1957), professor of physiology (1928, succeeding Willem Einthoven) and neurology (1945, both in Leiden). Both collections deal with the physiology of body posture by the equilibrium of reflex musculature contractions for which experimental studies were done with animals (labyrinthectomies, cerebellectomies, and brainstem sections) and observations on patients. The films demonstrate the results of these studies. Moreover, there are films with babies showing tonic neck reflexes and moving images capturing adults with cerebellar symptoms following cerebellectomies for tumors and several other conditions. Magnus’ studies resulted in his well-known Körperstellung (1924, “Body Posture”) and Rademaker’s research in his Das Stehen (1931, “Standing”). The films probably had an educative and scientific purpose. Magnus demonstrated his films at congresses, including the Eighth International Congress of Physiologists (Vienna, 1910) and Rademaker screened his moving images at meetings of the Amsterdam Neurologists Society (at several occasions as reflected in the Winkler-Monakow correspondence and the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde). Next to these purposes, the films were used to analyze movement and a series of images from the films were published in articles and books. The films are important historical sources that provide a portrait of the pre-World War II era in neuroscience, partly answering questions on how physicians dealt with patients and researchers with their laboratory animals. Moreover, the films confirm that cinematography was an important scientific tool in neuroscience research.     

Vincenzo Neri and His Legacy in Paris and Bologna

Italian neurologist Vincenzo Neri was able to discover cinematography at the beginning of his career, when in 1908 he went to Paris to learn and improve his clinical background by following neurological cases at La Pitié with Joseph Babinski, who became his teacher and friend. While in Paris, Neri photographed and filmed several patients of famous neurologists, such as Babinski and Pierre Marie. His stills were published in several important French neurological journals and medical texts. He also collaborated with Georges Mendel, who helped Doyen film the first known surgical operation in the history of cinema. In 1910, when he came back to Bologna, he continued in his clinical activities and, for 50 years, slowly developed a huge archive of films, images, and prints of neurological, psychiatric, and orthopedic cases. This archive was extremely helpful to Neri, who especially needed to analyze neurological disorders and to differentiate them from functional conditions in order to understand clinical signs, rules, and mechanisms.     

The Magnus-Rademaker Scientific Film Collection: Ethical Issues on Animal Experimentation (1908–1940)

The Magnus-Rademaker scientific film collection (1908–1940) deals with the physiology of body posture by the equilibrium of reflex musculature contractions for which experimental studies were carried out with animals (e.g., labyrinthectomies, cerebellectomies, and brain stem sections) as well as observations done on patients. The films were made for demonstrations at congresses as well as educational objectives and film stills were published in their books. The purpose of the present study is to position these films and their makers within the contemporary discourse on ethical issues and animal rights in the Netherlands and the earlier international debates. Following an introduction on animal rights and antivivisection movements, we describe what Magnus and Rademaker thought about these issues. Their publications did not provide much information in this respect, probably reflecting their adherence to implicit ethical codes that did not need explicit mentioning in publications. Newspaper articles, however, revealed interesting information. Unnecessary suffering of an animal never found mercy in Magnus’ opinion. The use of cinematography was expanded to the reduction of animal experimentation in student education, at least in the case of Rademaker, who in the 1930s was involved in a governmental committee for the regulation of vivisection and cooperated with the antivivisection movement. This resulted not only in a propaganda film for the movement but also in films that demonstrate physiological experiments for students with the purpose to avert repetition and to improve the teaching of experiments. We were able to identify the pertinent films in the Magnus-Rademaker film collection. The production of vivisection films with this purpose appears to have been common, as is shown in news messages in European medical journals of the period.