VPRS 16803 Clinical Photographs of In-Patients [I]

This series consists of clinical photographs of Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) in-patients. The photographs illustrate a range of medical and surgical conditions and some post mortem results. According to the Archives Department of the RCH these may be the earliest known clinical photography for any Melbourne hospital.There are no dates or descriptive captions. The first volume has page numbers and each photograph is labelled with a case number (the meaning of which is subject to further research). The second volume has no information other than the photographs.Based on information in the photographs, the RCH Archives inferred an approximate date range of 1890 to 1908.Precisely who took the photographs, why they took them, and how they selected their subjects is not known. According to the official history of the RCH photographs were taken to illustrate cases published in medical journals and doctors did arrange for photographs to be taken for medical purposes (though when this began it doesn't say). Initially these were taken by outside photographers. The first photographer was appointed to the hospital in 1934 and at the same time a clinical photography service was established. See the publication The Royal Children's Hospital; A History of Faith, Science and Love for further information.Clinical photographs of RCH in-patients can also be found in VPRS 16849 Clinical Photographs of In-Patients [II] c1943 - c1956.Prior to transfer to Public Record Office Victoria, the records in this series were maintained as part of the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) Archives. They were part of RCH accession number 2006/010.