The story of Dr. Kildare.
Whatsoever house I enter, there will I go for the benefit of the sick.
Whatsoever things I see or hear concerning the life of a man, I will keep silence thereon,
counting such things to be held as sacred trust.
I will exercise my arts only for the cure of my grief.
The story of Dr. Kildare, starring Lou Ayres and Lionel Barrymore.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer brought you those famous motion pictures.
Now this exciting, heartwarming series is heard on radio.
In just a moment, the story of Dr. Kildare.
But first, your announcer.
Now the story of Dr. Kildare, starring Lou Ayres as Dr. Kildare
and Lionel Barrymore as Dr. Gillespie.
Take a look at the road map in the glove compartment, will you, Dr. G?
I think we turn off at a side road soon.
Side road? You mean there's actually a side road off this wagon trail?
I'll admit these desert roads aren't exactly super highways,
but this country doesn't call for four-lane traffic.
Come on, get the map out, will you?
How can I even read the confounded thing with the wind tearing it out of my hand?
All right, I'll stop.
Fine vacation I let you talk me into, Jimmy Kildare.
Touring the Arizona desert in a convertible.
Next thing you know, you'll have me riding a hot rod.
Not that this thing isn't hot enough.
Oh, I'm sorry, Dr. G, but we'll be out of the heat in another hour or so.
We'll be 40 miles a place.
If you were a sailor instead of a doctor,
you'd be the type that hires a rowboat on leave.
I thought this was a vacation.
It is, but I do want to see the new sanitarium, and so do you.
Oh, let's see.
Here's the last town we pass through.
It must be about here on the map.
And here's the turnoff we want, about six miles farther, I'd say.
Well, let's go, let's go.
I'm cooked half through.
I should be well done by the time we get there.
Jimmy, what's the matter with you?
Oh, no, I just feel a little dizzy, nauseated.
Jimmy, you're sick.
Oh, no, no, it's just the heat, that's all.
It is not.
Same thing happened to you yesterday when we were coming through the mountains.
It wasn't hot up there.
All right, it is passing away now.
You'd better let me drive the rest of it.
Oh, no.
I'll drive the rest of the night over.
I'll come around.
You'd better get some rest when we reach the sanitarium.
I'm going to give you a good going over and find out what's wrong with you.
All right, I tell you, I'll feel fine by the time we get there.
Don't seem to be anybody here, Jimmy.
No, well, it's Sunday and that explains why the workmen aren't around,
but Dr. Simmons should be here.
This is his baby.
The place is almost complete.
Yeah.
Looks like it'll be ready for use in another few weeks.
Just a matter of general finishing and installing of equipment.
Dr. Simmons must be around.
Hello? Hello? Anybody here?
Well, kill the hare, Dr. Gillespie.
Oh, this is a surprise.
Hi, Dr. Simmons.
Hello, Simmons.
What brings you here?
Well, theoretically, we're on a vacation, but kill the hare's been snooping
into your letters to me.
Aw.
So he brought me here for a cook's tour of the place.
Well, he never had a better idea.
You're looking fine, Leonard.
Just keep going, don't you?
Like the old man of the sea.
The old man of the sea.
You could use a sea around this desert.
You wouldn't say that if you'd ever seen one of our flash floods.
How are you, Jimmy?
Oh, just fine, Dr. Simmons.
Famous last words. Just look at him and you can see how fine he is.
Hey, right, Jimmy, you don't look well.
Now, don't you start to. I've been working hard, that's all.
The trip has been exhausting.
Now, were we going to talk about the state of my health
or are you going to show us what we drove 2,000 miles to see?
Don't worry, you're going to see every inch of it.
My goodness.
Over and over again.
This is one dream that I want to share. Come on.
When will you be ready for patients?
About 15th of next month.
That's when the staff will come in.
Complete equipment is stored in those rooms to the left.
It's a matter of setting up shop when the glass work and the windows are finished.
Yeah, let me show you this.
So here.
Hmm.
Well, what do you think?
Simmons?
I'd say that this is the best celerium I've ever seen.
That goes double for me. It's marvelous, Dr. Simmons.
Yeah, the sun is life to a tubercular patient.
You wait until this is finished.
The glass we're installing has been designed to admit
the greatest possible degree of ultraviolet.
You'll save a lot of lives here, John.
How long can you stay?
Oh, two or three days, if there's a place for us.
A couple of the rooms are completed.
I wanted to move in as soon as possible.
I won't guarantee the meals, though.
I can do some pretty grim things to food cooked over a Bunsen burner.
Hey, sounds like an interesting diet.
You've got customers.
Good.
Dr. Simmons, would you mind showing me to my room now?
I think I'd like to take a little nap until this afternoon.
Confounded, Jimmy. You are sick.
No, no, I'm just tired, Doc.
Yeah, being tired doesn't make a man turn white
and break into sudden perspiration.
After your nap, you're getting a checkup.
Dr. G, when you entered the medical profession,
the world lost a great pearl diver.
What are you talking about?
If I remember my slang correctly,
pearl diver means dishwasher.
And you are doing very well.
I'd do better if you two would keep quiet
and speed up the drying.
I've got a patient I'm itching to get at.
Oh, no, you haven't.
I've had a little rest and I feel fine.
He does look a lot better at that, Leonard.
You've got a little color.
Color?
Half your patients you'll treat will have good color, too.
That doesn't prove anything.
The way I feel proves enough for me.
I'm all right.
I'm inclined to agree with him.
Any man who can survive my recipe for chili and beans
must be in good condition.
There you are, Dr. G, overruled.
But I promise you that if I ever do need help,
you'll get my business.
That sounds fair, Leonard.
At least kill there.
Dr. Simmons, come quick.
You've got to come quick right away, please.
Before it's too late.
Oh, Pedro, what's the matter?
My little Rosie, she's dying.
Senoris, excuse me, please.
I must take the doctor away.
No, no, no, no.
Calm down, Pedro.
These gentlemen adapt us, too.
Then you come, too, please, senoris.
Rosie's so sick she can't hold up her head.
She's just laying there behind the house,
the poor little thing.
You sound serious, Dr. Simmons.
Oh, he's very serious, doctor.
Please, my wife stays with her while I come for help.
You say she's lying outside the house?
Could you carry her inside?
How can we carry her, senor?
My wife and I, we can lift little Rosie.
You can't lift her.
Before you get the wrong idea,
I'd better explain something.
Little Rosie isn't a child.
She's Pedro's burro.
Burro?
Si, si.
Dr. Rosie can't help that she's a burro,
just like she can't help that she's sick.
Oh, please, senoris, you've got to help me.
We need her.
She carry everything on her back for us.
If anything happened to Rosie,
then my poor wife, she got to carry everything.
Well, it sounds like we really must help.
If it were your wife's sake, if not for Rosie's,
I'll go with him and have a look at the animal.
Are you serious to me?
Why not? The animal is important to him.
Might make medical history of that.
One stubborn donkey treating another.
The subtlety of that last remark is not lost, Dr. G.
Where's your place, Pedro?
Only six miles, senor.
If we run, we'll be there in an hour.
Oh, that sounds like great exercise,
but do you mind if we take my car instead?
I don't cross cars.
But for Rosie, I go weak.
You don't know how brave that is, Kildare.
By the time you drive over the road to his shack,
if you can call it a road,
you might wish you'd tried running it.
Maybe so.
Anyway, I'll borrow that field kit, Dr. Simmons.
I may need it if the burrows really sick.
Not only that, but it'll protect you from Dr. Gillespie.
He's got a surgical glint in his eye.
Well, I'll give your regards to Rosie.
What's the matter with her, Doctor?
Why she don't get up?
How old is this animal?
Oh, she's only 20. She's young.
Young?
20-year-old burrow equals the age of a man of 80 or more.
She's just tired. Tired of working.
She was tired of working when she was 2 years old.
She's even more tired than Pedro.
Well, a shot of vitamin B might help,
but this old girl's ready for pasture.
I'll give her...
Oh, Doctor, what's wrong?
Why your face gets so white?
I don't know.
Here, Doctor, please let me help you.
Thank you, Pedro.
Can you get me in the...
Is he?
Quick, Maria. You take his other arm.
Yes.
You got great pain, Doctor.
Here, please, you sit down.
My stomach, I guess, that chilly or something,
didn't go very well with the bumpy ride we had coming out here.
Do you want some water, Doctor?
Please.
Oh, be able to drive back as soon as his pain goes away.
He'll go in a few minutes.
The pain is not better, Doctor.
No, I'm afraid not.
It's becoming more localized.
Can either of you drive an automobile?
No, Senor, no, we never learn.
Doctor, maybe if you tell Pedro how to drive it, he can take you back.
I'm afraid we're too late for that.
I couldn't possibly stand the trip over that road.
What do you want us to do, Senor?
One of you will have to go on foot.
Dr. Simmons has a car at the sanitarium, doesn't he?
Si, si, of course.
My stomach muscles are getting rigid.
Doctor, why you press your stomach when it brings you such pain?
Just making sure of what's wrong with me.
Pedro, get Dr. Gillespie from the sanitarium and bring him here as fast as you can.
Hurry, Pedro.
See, I go the once.
Pedro, you better bring that medical kit in from the car before you go.
Si, si.
Tell Dr. Gillespie that I'll have to have surgery in two hours at the most.
I've got acute appendicitis.
We return to the story of Dr. Kildare in just a moment.
Now we continue with the story of Dr. Kildare starring Lou Ayres as Dr. Kildare and Lionel
Barrymore as Dr. Gillespie.
Dr. Simmons, Dr. Globzsy.
Pedro, you're exhausted.
I got to bring you.
What's the matter?
Why didn't you bring Dr. Kildare?
The great pain in his stomach.
He said for you to come right away to make the operation.
And the side?
Si, si, senor.
I knew I should have examined him, the young fool.
He had all the symptoms.
He couldn't even drive back, senor.
I call my foot.
Come on, I have my car.
We can get to him in 20 minutes.
We'll need equipment.
The kit he took is complete.
Everything we need will be there.
Oh, senor.
What's the matter?
What are you stopping for?
We have to stop, Leonard.
Can't you hear that?
You mean you want to wait for a rainstorm to pass
when Kildare's appendix is liable to burst any minute?
This isn't just a rainstorm.
It's a flash flood.
We can't possibly get through to him.
Well, I'm going to get through to him.
It's no use, Leonard.
Open the door and look out there.
Every hollow and gully will be a raging river
in less than two minutes.
Rain is rain.
Grab him, Pedro.
Si, senor, doctor, please, senor.
Let me go.
Leonard, stop.
Look out there.
Look.
It's like a waterfall out there.
There's absolutely nothing we can do about it.
Uh, how long will it last, John?
Still?
Yeah.
Probably less than five minutes.
But after that, eight or ten hours before we can even start.
Uh, well, he might be all right for that long.
No, senor.
He said two hours at the most,
and I leave him more than an hour ago.
Doctor, why you don't take another one of the little pills
to help the pain?
No, if I didn't do too much, go to sleep.
I'd be finished, and there'd be no chance.
Doctor, the storm, I don't know how to say it.
I know, Maria.
It's a flash flood.
I've heard of them.
How long before they'll be able to get through?
It will be night soon.
Not before morning.
Maria, how do you light the house at night?
We have a lamp, but there's no fuel.
No fuel?
But I can make a light for you.
I have the holy candles.
Good.
Maria, I've heard that Mexican women have great courage.
Is that true?
It is our pride, senor.
Why do you ask?
You know I may die before help arrives.
Oh, no, senor doctor.
There's only one way to prevent that.
Whether or not I do will depend on you being very calm.
I will do as you say.
I can't live unless my appendix is removed, Maria.
I'll have to remove it.
Myself.
But I can't do this without your help.
But how can you do this to be operated on
while one must be in a deep sleep?
No, I can use a local anesthetic.
It'll help some.
The pain will be very great.
And you must not be frightened.
Especially you must not faint.
I won't faint.
You can depend on me.
I've never depended on anyone more.
Help me with these gloves, Maria.
And be careful.
Don't touch anything that hasn't been sterilized
in the hot water.
I almost forget.
Now, spread the instruments
and the clean towel there beside me.
The pain you have seems to be better.
Maybe you don't have to go on with it.
No, no.
It's the local anesthetic beginning to take hold.
You remember the names of the instruments now?
Si.
Scalpel and the forceps.
Yes, and those.
Those when I call for sutures.
Si.
I won't forget.
What do you do now with that needle?
I give myself an injection of penicillin
to prevent infection.
Now, I want you to look at this hyponeedle,
the one you saw me prepare before.
When I start operating,
after I make the incision, Maria,
I'll be in great pain,
much worse than what I've had before.
You understand that?
Yes, Doctor.
Now, my greatest danger will be fainting.
And there's a better-than-even chance
that I will faint.
But if that happens to you, Doctor,
what can I do?
That's what the needle is for, Maria.
It's coramine, a heart stimulant.
If I pass out, you must inject me with this needle.
Doctor, I have never done anything like this before.
I don't know how to do it.
I know, but don't be afraid of it.
Just jab it into my arms.
Sink it in good.
Push the plunger until it's empty.
But I'm afraid I might hurt you.
If I pass out and you don't do it,
I will never regain consciousness.
This is the one thing I must leave
completely up to you, Maria.
I will do my best.
Good. I'll lie back.
Tilt the mirror so I can see what I'm doing.
All right.
I can't see yet. Tilt it further.
Like this?
No, further.
Here?
There. That's it.
Doctor, how long will it take?
I don't know.
It may finish in 15 minutes.
I don't know.
It may never finish.
All right, Maria.
Scalpel, please.
Gillespie.
Oh, Simmons.
How about it? Did you get the call through?
Yes, the lines weren't damaged, luckily.
I contacted the Mercy Hospital in Phoenix.
What did I think of my idea?
Well, a storm's over and a helicopter's
taking off from the Phoenix airport right now.
They'll pick us up here in about half an hour
and fly us out to Pedro Shack.
They don't go to fly me no place.
I'll wait right here till I can walk.
Half an hour.
I hope Jimmy's all right until we get there.
After we operate, we can get him into the hospital
at Phoenix for post-surgical care.
Post-surgical care isn't our problem.
Once the appendix is out, he'll be all right.
If it's caught before it ruptures.
If it isn't, and Peridonitis sets in,
he'll need plenty of care.
I just hope he's trying to rest out there.
He must know that we can't get through to him.
I only hope he doesn't get panicky.
Panicky?
You don't know Jimmy killed there like I do.
Whatever we find there, it won't be panic.
It's dark though.
Can a helicopter make a night landing?
They've got spotlights. They can land anyplace.
Yeah.
Keep wiping my forehead, please, Maria.
All right.
You all right?
I think so.
Forcibly.
All right.
Never mind. Another one, hurry.
Please.
I'm almost ready to get deep panics.
I can barely see.
I still can't see.
Is the mirror missed it all?
No.
No, the mirror is all right.
Doctor, what's the matter?
Slap me, Maria.
No, I'm afraid.
Slap me. Slap my face.
All right. Scalpel, quick.
There.
I got it. I got it out, Maria.
Not finished yet, though.
I must... I must...
Senior doctor. Senior doctor.
Needle, Maria. Coramine. Hypo.
I'm so tired.
Lights just picked up a shack down there, sir. See it?
Yes, that's her place, pilot. She can land all right.
Cinch. Her altitude's only 200 feet, and it's all flat down there.
Here we go.
Just be a little jolt when we hit.
All right. All right, we're down. Let us out.
Just lift that latch, Doc. You'll cut the motor.
There's Pedro's wife. Just open the shack door.
Senorita, senorita, you've come lucky.
How's Dr. Kildare? Where is he?
He's inside.
Jimmy. Jimmy boy.
Dr. G. Are you all right, Kildare?
Fine. Fine. But only word he knows.
Well, just hold tight until we're ready, Jimmy.
We'll have that appendix out in the middle.
Too late, Dr. G. It's already out.
What?
That piece of gauze by the table.
Ah, but you couldn't. It's impossible.
Oh, I'm not the first. Doctors have done it before.
Yeah, and an operating room under ideal conditions will help.
But not alone in a place like this.
I had no choice, Dr. Gillespie.
And I... I had Maria's help.
Well, he should have waited.
It was an idiotic thing to try.
I don't know if it was or not, Dr. Gillespie.
Come take a look at this appendix.
Oh, the great horn's bone.
It's a good thing you did take it out, Jimmy.
Another minute could have been too long.
Yeah, but he wouldn't let me check him over this morning.
Oh, no, no, no.
He winds up out here doing it himself.
By the way, Dr. Kildare,
how's the other donkey you came out to see?
Oh, he's old, ready for pasture.
Just like you, Dr. G.
No, that's all.
I'd gone to buy Pedro and Maria a new burrow.
Maria made a mighty brave and efficient nurse when the chips were down.
I'm still sore where she gave me a coramine injection.
Look, there you see, stick your heart.
So when you faint, I close my eyes and I stick.
I'd like to close my eyes and stick them, too.
I'll bet you would.
That'd make you happy.
Happy?
Jimmy, it'd make me feel like a kid again.
A kid playing pin the tail on a donkey.
In just a moment, we will return to the story of Dr. Kildare.
And now, once again, the story of Dr. Kildare, starring Lou Ayers as Dr. Kildare and Lionel
Barrymore as Dr. Gillespie.
Hello, Jimmy.
Hello, Dr. G. Car dried out yet?
Yep.
We can leave in the morning.
Good.
Think you can stand the trip?
Oh, I'm fine.
Fit as a fiddle.
I'm ready to get back to work at Blair.
The only thing bothering me is how much of a bill to send myself.
Oh, by the way, reports of your little operation kicked up quite a sensation, Jimmy.
Oh, sure.
Here's a wire from a news syndicate.
They want you to write your own story.
But that isn't enough to make you as cheerful as you seem to be.
Yeah.
Oh, whenever you chuckle like that, Dr. G., I know there's something pretty nasty coming up.
Now, come on.
What is it?
Oh, nothing.
Yes, there is.
Oh, I was just talking to Simmons on the phone.
He said that Pedro and Maria were delighted with the new dummies.
Yes, they were just delighted.
You know what they're going to name him, Jimmy?
No.
They're calling him Dr. Kildare.
Now, isn't that sweet?
Oh, very sweet.
But it's likely to create a family feud between Maria and Pedro.
Well, what do you mean?
Well, I heard you suggesting that name to Pedro, so I had a chat with Maria, and she's calling the burro Gillespie.
You think you're smart, don't you?
You have just heard the story of Dr. Kildare starring Lou Ayers and Lionel Barrymore.
This program was written by Joel Murcott and directed by Joe Bigelow.
Original music was composed and conducted by Walter Schuman.
Supporting cast included Lillian Bajaf, Anthony Barrett, and Wilms Herbert.
Dick Joy speaking.