Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

Patients rebuilt : Dr Auguste Rollier's heliotherapeutic portraits, c.1903-1944

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Woloshyn, Tania (2013) Patients rebuilt : Dr Auguste Rollier's heliotherapeutic portraits, c.1903-1944. Medical Humanities, Volume 39 (Number 1). pp. 38-46. doi:10.1136/medhum-2012-010281 ISSN 1468-215X.

Research output not available from this repository.

Request-a-Copy directly from author or use local Library Get it For Me service.

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2012-010281

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

This article explores and critically contextualises the photographic production of heliotherapist Auguste Rollier (1874–1954), specifically the ‘patient portraits’ photographed at his Leysin sanatoria over a substantial period of four decades, c.1903–1944. It argues that these photographs, ignored in secondary literature, were particularly persuasive in communicating the natural healing powers of sunlight and through their international dissemination brought Rollier's work professional acclaim and prestige. Always presenting anonymous patients, and most often children, the images produced for Rollier's work interweave aesthetic and medical interests. Whether through the aesthetics of the photograph, of the positioning and appearance of the patient's body, or of the language used to describe these, issues of beauty and harmony were significant preoccupations for Rollier and the dissemination of his heliotherapeutic practice. The article argues that these aesthetic preoccupations drove his work, that the patient's progress and final cure, and thus the therapy's efficacy, were determined by aesthetic criteria—read through the body itself and its photographic representation. This legibility, of the body and its photography, was crucial to articulating the sun's perceived natural ability to improve, heal and even ‘rebuild’ individual patients into socially and physically productive citizens. As such, the article contends, Rollier privileged image over word, conceiving the former as possessing an unequalled ‘eloquence’ to communicate the efficacy and social potential of heliotherapy.

Item Type: Journal Article
Divisions: Faculty of Arts > History
Journal or Publication Title: Medical Humanities
Publisher: B M J Group
ISSN: 1468-215X
Official Date: 2013
Dates:
DateEvent
2013Published
Volume: Volume 39
Number: Number 1
Page Range: pp. 38-46
DOI: 10.1136/medhum-2012-010281
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Access rights to Published version: Restricted or Subscription Access

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item
twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us