‘Country Doctor’

Dr Ceriani worked single-handedly to provide comprehensive healthcare for a scattered population around Kremmling, a small town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The Life Magazine article was solicited from W Eugene Smith, a photographer who is key in the development of the editorial photo essay.2 Dr Ceriani had begun training in surgery but switched to general practice in Kremmling, seeing patients in his office and often travelling many miles by horseback for home visits.3 The text accompanying the images notes that ‘he was a physician, surgeon, obstetrician, paediatrician, psychiatrist, dentist, oculist, and laboratory technician’, with children evidently representing a large proportion of his work. One picture that seizes the viewer’s attention shows Ceriani tending to a small girl (figure 1). In others, he is seen delivering a baby, examining …