Men of Medicine

Series

Series Name

The March of Time 4th Year

Issue

Issue No.

10

Date Released

1938

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1Men of Medicine

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 1

Summary

The March of Time synopsis: In every city and town, there is one house that everybody knows - the doctor’s. Available here are the services of the man who, by law, is privileged to practice the most respected of all professions. To today’s doctors has come a vital trust - to heal the sick and keep the healthy well. And to the nation’s schools of medicine is entrusted the responsibility of passing on unbroken the inheritance of medical knowledge, and to imbue each young student with the traditions and ethics of his chosen profession. Here he must learn every physical detail, every living function of the human body. He must master the science of chemistry and biology. He must train his mind to grasp and make use of the accumulated knowledge of centuries of medical research. The film is built around the experiences of a young medical man, Dr. Gibson, who after completing his scholastic life, is shown taking for himself the age-old oath of his profession - the oath of Hippocrates. He then joins a hospital staff for the period o fhis interneship. Here he is brought face to face with the realities of life and of medicine, and brought in contact with the great men of medicine of today, from whom he absorbs the high tradition of surgery.

Only after years of training and a heavy financial investment is the young doctor ready for a harder job - building a practice of his own. Unforgettable to every doctor is his first patient, the first advice given, the first money earned. But keenest in his memory is every detail of his first big case. In the middle of the night Dr. Gibson is summoned to be bedside of a sick boy, whose regular doctor is away. Obliged to take the case on his own responsibility, Dr. Gibson diagnoses it as acute appendicitis, rushes the patient to hospital, where he verifies his diagnoses, and operates immediately. Thus within little more than half-an-hour the new doctor has justified his years of training, for before dawn, the boy who at midnight was in danger of death, is on his way to getting well again. Self-imposed reponsibility of the medical profesion today, as in the past, is the free and voluntary medical service to those whose need is great, whose resources are small. In hospital clinics the doctor receives no compensation for his services other than upholding the great and good tradition of his profession. And heavy is the doctor’s burden, for with depression adding to the ever present problem of patients unable to pay, the American medical profession finds that the doctor is contributing in free service over one million dollars each day.

Welcomed by all the nation’s doctors is the public’s new and sober concern over the problems of Medicine. As many communities take inventory of their hospital’s institutional equipment, they are learning that besides the long famliar accessories of medical science, there is important new apparatus, such as the new and improved "Iron Lung" which breathes for man when his own lung action fails. And this year, as books based on the life of doctors and the progress of medicine become popular best-sellers, the public is learning of the doctor’s greatest weapons against disease - the triumphs of biological research, such as insulin, which has made life possible for the diabetic, young or old. Rising today is a generation whose life span no man of medicine will predict, for the science which has added a decade to our days knows that whatever great discoveries lie behind it - immeasurably greater ones lie ahead.

Researcher Comments

This story was included in Vol.4 No.11 of the US edition.

Keywords

Health and medicine

Written sources

Fielding, Raymond. The March of Time 1935-1951 (New York, 1978)   p229.
The March of Time Promotional Material   Lobby Card, Used for synopsis

Credits:

Production Co.

Time Inc.