This dry glass plate negative captures a scene from an operation performed on a patient by Dr. O. R. Avison (1860-1956) at the Severance Hospital with the assistance of a Korean named Bak Seo-yang (1885-1940). It is a valuable material that shows what a hospital operating room looked like at that time, along with medical instruments, staff and their outfits. Avison was a Canadian who, having graduated from the medical school of the University of Toronto, came to Korea as a Christian missionary and started treating patients in July 1893 at the Jejungwon (House of Universal Helpfulness). He played a key role in bringing modern Western medical science to the country and in the founding of the Severance Hospital and the Severance Medical School (currently Yonsei University College of Medicine). The young Korean (Bak Seo-yang) seen in the film was among the first group of graduates from the Severance Medical School in June 1908. He served as a professor at his alma mater before travelling to Manchuria in 1918 to engage in Korea’s independence movement there and to assist in the establishment of hospitals, churches, and schools.