In 1948, CBS was approached by the pharmaceutical
house of Smith, Kline & French, with a proposal to use color television
as a teaching tool for surgery. CBS accepted, and on May 31, 1949, the
first live operation in front of color television cameras took place at
the University of Pennsylvania. In December 1949, the CBS team took
this system to the American Medical Association's annual meeting in
Atlantic City.
The equipment consisted of field sequential cameras
and support equipment made for CBS, and receivers made by Zenith.
Operations taking place in Atlantic City Hospital
were televised to 15,000 viewers (1,000 at a time) in the convention
hall. The response from viewers was tremendous, and some people were
fainting, when they witnessed the realism of surgery delivered through
the power of color images. Here is a 1949 Life Magazine article and a 1949 Popular Science article.
|

Boom camera |

Control room |

Zenith Receiver
In 1956, the field sequential equipment was replaced
by NTSC equipment from RCA, including TK-41 cameras. A personal
narrative by
John K. Makenzie provides a good description of the SKF project.

Pictures courtesy of John K. Makenzie


Postcard sent to physicians in 1957
(Courtesy of Wayne Bretl)