A Two-Year-Old Goes to Hospital—Scientific Film by James Robertson

This is a documentary film, made by James Robertson with meticulous care, conscientiousness, and attention to detail. Mr. Robertson sets himself the task of accompanying with the camera a young child through the eight days of a first experience of hospital life. The child, Laura, a girl of two and a half years, who has to undergo a minor operation for umbilical hernia, is shown in her own home first, then at regular intervals and specified times of the morning and afternoon in hospital from the day of admission to that of departure, and finally once more when she has returned to her own family. During her eight days as an in-patient, nothing outstanding happens to Laura; there are no mishaps, no complications, no appreciable pains, no neglectfulness, nothing even remotely resembling cruelty. The child receives the best medical attention, first-class nursing care, the external set-up of the hospital is up to date and, from the hygienic aspect, faultless. Father and mother do not fail to visit as often as the hospital rules permit which, in this special case, is every second day. In spite of all these positive factors, the pictures reveal a child who is deeply upset, alternatively withdrawn and tearful, at most times listless and apathetic, with little response to her environment. During the eight days, her personality undergoes subtle but increasing changes in directions which are ominous to the trained observer.

Since the film was undertaken as an experiment in scientific recording, the procedures used by Mr. Robertson were devised to minimize all subjective elements in the presentation and to produce data which can be accepted and discussed as authentic. To avoid any predilection in the type of child chosen, the case of Laura was taken from the waiting-list of the hospital as an unknown quantity, no stipulation being made by Mr. Robertson besides the points that she should belong to a specific age-group (between two and three years), that her operation shoul