Captain Ross and other motion picture men have arrived and believe that before long this side of the work will be going satisfactorily." 50[1]
Today's acceptance of moving pictures of operations as a familiar procedure in medical training has vindicated the interest taken in this technique by Colonel Owen and Major Wilson. Such pictures are shown as part of modern medical training, and have even made their appearance on television. They still inescapably "advertise the operator," but this minor objection is more than counterbalanced by the greater facility with which the observer can see and understand what is done as it is done.
By the end of September, the photographers were at work in the zone of the advance, covering the activities of the divisions at the front. With the signing of the armistice of n November 1918, and the cessation of hostilities, the Museum staff was concentrated at Dijon until 29 November, when Captain Ross, with three photographers, was ordered to Paris to set up a photographic bureau for the Medical Department of the AEF. The bureau was housed in the Elysee Palace Hotel, where three large bathrooms were converted into photographic darkrooms. 51[2]
Despite difficulties and delays in securing sufficient supplies, some of which had to be procured from the French, the photographic staff made, captioned, filed, and cross-indexed about 10,000 still photographs and turned out some 40,000 feet of motion-picture film showing medical and surgical activities around the hospitals, in addition to prints of 20,000 feet of film made by the Signal Corps. In the same period, the artists and modelers produced 35 casts of surgical subjects, about 200 drawings and paintings, and 1,000 photographs of technical subjects. 52[3]
Lieutenant Schwarz conceived the idea of making life masks of the principal figures at the Peace Conference then in session. Working with Miss Allen, he made a "bully mask" of Ambassador Sharp, who put him in touch with Col. E. M. House who, in turn, introduced the lieutenant to M. Andre Tardieu, the French High Commissioner for Franco-American affairs, whose mask was also made. Through M. Tardieu, Lieutenant Schwarz was presented to Marshal Joseph J. C. Joffre, who consented to have his mask taken on the evening of 7 January 1919, and who made arrangements for the taking of a mask of Marshal Ferdinand Foch on 9 January, and of President Raymond Poincare
- ↑ 50 Letter, Maj. L. B. Wilson to Col. W. O. Owen, 5 October 1918. On file in historical records of AF1P.
- ↑ 51 Memorandum, Maj. Robert Ross, 17 April 1919. On file in historical records of AFIP.
- ↑ 52 (1) Medical Department History, World War I, volume II, p. 225. (2) Wilson, The Military Surgeon, 46 (1920), p. 172.
