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History of Nursing: Early Years. 2008. Insight Media. Producer: Jessica Tannenbaum, Director: Ken Lam. Insight Media. 2162 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10024. DVD, 35 minutes. ($199.00) www.insight-media.com
History of Nursing: The Development of a Profession. 2008. Insight Media. Producer: Jessica Tannenbaum, Director: Ken Lam. Insight Media. 2162 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10024. DVD, 36 minutes. ($199.00) www.insightmedia.com
After a flurry of black and white films on the history of nursing appeared in the 1970s and 1980s, the use of this powerful medium to illustrate nursing's role in history ceased. It is therefore with pleasure that one welcomes the arrival of this attractive well-illustrated film production of the history of nursing. Developed by Insight Media and packaged as two DVDs, History of Nursing is an ambitious project that covers the history of the profession from antiquity to the present. Although primarily designed as an educational film for nursing students and those interested in health history, the DVDs will also appeal to audiences who simply want to learn the story of how nurses have cared for the sick over time.
The first segment, The History of Nursing: Early Years, explores the original appearance of nurses and nursing in society. Using a variety of colored images from ancient paintings, sculptures, maps, and more contemporary black and white photographs, the story opens in ancient Mesopotamia around the fifth century b.c. Drawing from evidence extracted from artifacts and writings from ancient civilizations, the struggle of mankind is revealed as men try to understand why humans suffer and die and how certain people in every society became healers, sometimes as priests, physicians, medicine men, and nurses. The two videos wisely use two expert nurse historians, Jean Whelan and Barbra Mann Wall, to clarify facts and add a sense of vitality to the presentation. Their comments aid viewers in recognizing the contributions to medical knowledge and the development of Western medicine made by the ancient medical traditions of the Egyptian, Indian, and...