“It takes your breath away”
Angela Saward, Research Development Specialist,
Wellcome Collection, London.
The title of this presentation is taken from a film made in 1964 which won a Silver Award at the British Medical Association’s Film Festival. A ten-minute introduction precedes the screening of It Takes Your Breath Away (13 min.).
The 1956 Clean Air Act was implemented in the UK after the “Great Smog” of 1952, which had a devastating impact on the health of many vulnerable people: this catastrophic environmental event led to at least 4,000 people dying immediately with 8,000 in the weeks and months afterwards. In the sixties, the benefits of using cleaner energy in the home and industry took some time to be apparent. Even today air pollution is still a major factor when it comes to threats against health, especially for burgeoning urban populations. Poverty, as illustrated in the film, is also a factor.
Produced by Dr. Mary Catterall, It Takes Your Breath Away is illustrative of the activism in the medical community when professional and personal interests work in unison. Her interest in lung health was evident when she was appointed Senior Registrar in Respiratory Medicine at Leeds General Infirmary in 1960. She developed the new improved “MC” oxygen mask patented in 1961 while she also drew attention to the serious levels of air pollution in Leeds, England.
Her film illustrates the effect on the lungs of those living in a polluted atmosphere using pathological specimens. Two patients are seen, one of whom had to change his job on account of reduced respiratory capacity due to bronchitis. This film uses very evocative footage of polluted city centers and inner-city housing, showing widespread burning of fossil fuels in industry and the home as well as a hospital. Smutty deposits are over everything. Comparisons are made between the UK’s “Social Class 1,” who can afford to live in the clean suburbs and “Social Class 5,” who fall victim to respiratory disease through constant exposure to pollution.
It Takes Your Breath Away (1964) 16mm, b&w, sound, 13 min.
Produced by Dr. M. CATTERALL and Polytechnic School of Photography
Click to enlarge, or watch at vimeo.com/416395436.
Bio
Angela Saward, Research Development Specialist.
Wellcome Collection <wellcomecollection.org> is a London museum and library which has multi-media works (prints, drawings, books, archives, paintings and audio-visual materials) covering the history of medicine and what it is to be human. I work within the Research Development team in Collections & Research engaging the research community (a researcher in the broadest sense) and activating research into our unique and distinctive collections, especially moving image and sound.