The following videos are short educational films made in the 1940s and 1950s and provide some basic knowledge on infectious diseases and microbiology. How much has this basic knowledge changed after half a century? Which specific statements in the videos should be changed (and why) if you wanted these films to comply with today's microbiology? Please leave any comments here.
Video no. 1: Bacteria footage (AVG-BF231) [on bacterial biology]
Video no. 2: Insects As Carriers of Disease (1945) [a Disney film]
Video no. 3: Outbreak of Salmonella Infection (1954)
The three videos were uploaded onto Google Video by A/V Geeks. They have been digitizing thousands of TV commercials held at Duke University’s Hartman Center for Advertising.
Hi
ReplyDeleteIn the first one the main changes would be about taxonomy (Bacteria aren't plants and they have bacteriochlorophill) and the use of molecular tools for bacterial identification.
The Disney's and Army's videos needs only minor changes because its mesage is about clean habits. If they were done today maybe we will see the university's cafeteria instead an army canteen.
Regards
Yes, the "bacteria are plants" phrase sounds kind of shocking to our ears today... But this was before the discovery of the prokaryote-eukaryote dichotomy and, later, the proposal of the three domains of life. These were major changes in the scientific view of the microbial (and macrobial) world.
ReplyDeleteIn another 50 years... wow, who knows? Both frameworks (prokaryote/eukaryote, and three domains of life) will be replaced by something else... but what? I can't wait!