Imagining Illness

Public Health and Visual Culture

2010

David Serlin, editor

Analyzing the visual culture of public health from the nineteenth century to the present

Imagining Illness explores the diverse visual culture of public health, broadly defined, from the nineteenth century to the present. The contributors examine historical and contemporary visual practices—Chinese health fairs, documentary films from the World Health Organization, illness maps, fashions for nurses, and live surgery on the Internet—delving into the political and epidemiological contexts underlying their creation and dissemination.

Imagining Illness fills a significant gap in terms of the visual culture of public health...the images are abundant and beautifully reproduced by the press. Given that this book is devoted to the image, it is heartening to see them reproduced here with such detail and expertise.

International Journal of Communication

From seventeenth-century broadsides about the handling of dead bodies, printed during London’s plague years, to YouTube videos about preventing the transmission of STDs, public health advocacy and education has always had a powerful visual component. Imagining Illness explores the diverse visual culture of public health, broadly defined, from the nineteenth century to the present.

Contributors to this volume examine historical and contemporary visual practices—Chinese health fairs, documentary films produced by the World Health Organization, illness maps, fashions for nurses, and live surgery on the Internet—in order to delve into the political and epidemiological contexts underlying their creation and dissemination.

Contributors: Liping Bu, Alma College; Lisa Cartwright, U of California, San Diego; Roger Cooter, U College London; William H. Helfand; Lenore Manderson, Monash U, Australia; Emily Martin, New York U; Gregg Mitman, U of Wisconsin, Madison; Mark Monmonier, Syracuse U; Kirsten Ostherr, Rice U; Katherine Ott, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian; Shawn Michelle Smith, Art Institute of Chicago; Claudia Stein, Warwick U.

David Serlin is associate professor of communication and science studies at the University of California, San Diego.

Imagining Illness fills a significant gap in terms of the visual culture of public health...the images are abundant and beautifully reproduced by the press. Given that this book is devoted to the image, it is heartening to see them reproduced here with such detail and expertise.

International Journal of Communication

These essays constitute a rich resource for scholars interested in examining visual culture.

ISIS

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction. Toward a Visual Culture of Public Health: From Broadside to YouTube
David Serlin

I. Tracing the Visual Culture of Public Health Campaigns
1. Image and the Imaginary in Early Health Education: Wilbur Augustus Sawyer and the Hookworm Campaigns of Australia and Asia
Lenore Manderson

2. Cultural Communication in Picturing Health: W.W. Peter and Public Health Campaigns in China, 1912-1926
Liping Bu

3. The Color of Money: Campaigning for Health in Black and White America
Gregg Mitman

4. Empathy and Objectivity: Health Education Through Corporate Publicity Films
Kirsten Ostherr

II. Mapping a Visual Genealogy of Public Health
5. Contagion, Public Health, and the Visual Culture of Nineteenth-Century Skin
Katherine Ott

6. Maps as Graphic Propaganda for Public Health
Mark Monmonier

7. “Some One Sole Unique Advertisement”: Public Health Posters in the Twentieth Century
William H. Helfand

8. Nursing the Nation: The 1930s Public Health Nurse as Image and Icon
Shawn Michelle Smith

III. Building New Public Spheres for Public Health
9. Visual Imagery and Epidemics in the Twentieth Century
Roger Cooter and Claudia Stein

10. The Image of the Child in Postwar British and U.S. Psychoanalysis
Lisa Cartwright

11. Performing Live Surgery on Television and the Internet Since 1945
David Serlin

12. Imagining Mood Disorders as a Public Health Crisis
Emily Martin

Contributors
Index

UMP blog: "HPV Boredom 2" and the future of public service announcements

From seventeenth-century broadsides about the handling of dead bodies, printed during London’s plague years, to YouTube videos about preventing the transmission of STDs, public health advocacy and education has always had a powerful visual component. Imagining Illness explores, through various essays, the diverse visual culture of public health, broadly defined, from the nineteenth century to the present.