Mr. Till. Reel 1.

Date:
1939
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Credit

Mr. Till. Reel 1. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). Source: Wellcome Collection.

About this work

Description

This amateur film in black and white and colour with intertitles covers Montreal (dockside in winter with ice in the harbour), Toronto General Hospital (GVs and various pans outside) and other locations in this part of his tour. In colour, Professor W. E. Gallie walks confidently to camera on a bright sunny day in the gardens of the hospital. Various onlookers acknowledge the camera. Professor W. Boyd walks past with a colleague. There are long shots in the hospital wards; the first shots are too dark and the following ones are over exposed. Dr Shenston performs a lobectomy (although the surgical team are visible neither the operation nor the patient are). This is followed by footage of Dr Roscoe Graham. There are other views within the hospital. Dr Gordon Murray wiring a fractured clavicle follows (in black and white). Till visits Niagara Falls (from the Canadian side); there are some spectacular shots from various vantage points. Next, on to the lakes at Ontario viewed from above and then from a boat. A train pulls into the station after the intertitle 'Ann Arbor, University of Michigan'; the university is set within stunning lush greenery. Till then visits, Chicago, with views around Michigan Boulevard, then drivin. At some point he crosses the Mississippi and pauses to film it. There are rural scenes. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester is visited; there are a number of establishing shots including some curious children. There are many cars parked. An operation taking place in a training theatre is filmed from above.

Publication/Creation

1939.

Physical description

1 encoded moving image (06.04 mins) : silent, color

Duration

00:15:52

Copyright note

Unknown

Notes

Supporting paperwork available in the department.
This amateur footage was shot by Dr Anthony Stedman Till in 1939; Till himself donated them to the library and provided some information about them. He set off on his own expedition across Canada and the US in 1939 before the outbreak of war. The footage he shot is mostly colour. He was a highly regarded surgeon (his specialism was in thyroid and abdominal surgery). His visit to Canada seems to be of a professional nature with two visits to hospitals - Toronto General Hospital and The Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. At Toronto General Hospital members of the medical staff are named although some of the footage shot inside is rather dark and a little unsteady. At the Mayo Clinic we are shown an operating theatre with what appears to be open heart surgery taking place. Many major landmarks feature along this journey including the Heights of Abraham, Niagara Falls, Rocky Mountains, Vancouver Bay, etc. The footage certainly marked a turning point in Till’s life: in 1940 he joined the RAMC and served in the Middle East, Cape Town and Suez. He was captured and became a POW, imprisoned in Stalag VIIA. As a POW he operated on fellow prisoners and local civilians, then at some point (according to his obituary), he was repatriated to the UK for his services (he spoke fluent German). He was then part of the 181st Field Ambulance, which was in the vanguard of the medical relief of Bergen-Belsen, a Nazi concentration camp.
An obituary outlining Till's life can be read here: http://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/biogs/E000353b.htm

Terms of use

Unrestricted
CC-BY-NC
Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales

Language note

In English.

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