Arc light to the chest, photomontage, 2nd ed.

Light therapeutics: a practical manual of phototherapy for the student and the practitioner / John Harvey Kellogg. 2nd ed. Battle Creek, Mich. : Modern Medicine Pub. Co., 1927. (opp. p.108) Private collection.

By the 1920s, physicians such as Kellogg began incorporating advertising imagery into their textbooks. In this image, likely a photomontage, we are presented with a fresh-faced, smiling model, coiffed in the latest 1920s crop. The impression is that this phototherapeutic treatment is neither uncomfortable nor distressing, but in fact an enjoyable process. The ambiguity of her surroundings, reminiscent of a photographer's studio, is heightened by the impossibilities of the scene: the rays of the lamp (which itself appears hand drawn) shine on her chest and yet continue undisturbed beyond her. Compare the artificiality and eroticism of this photograph from Kellogg's second edition to the more sober photograph of the same name from the first edition.

Private collection.