Signs of Life: Medicine and Cinema is the first single volume to consider the cinematic representation of medicine, medical science and the medical profession, and explores the political implications of the representations of doctors, nurses, patients, diseases and disabilities. The essays in this collection, from a wide range of film scholars and medical practitioners, also consider how formal qualities of cinema such as empirical observation, mise-en-sc'ne, propaganda and education, melodrama, documentary and narrative construction impact on our understanding of medical procedures and the public image of medicine.