Quote:
Hannah Hunter: Medicine is the most noble and unselfish—
Col. John Marlowe: Sure, noble profession, noble oath, lanterns held on high—so high they won’t admit they’re gropin’ for.... There was a girl, not much older than that boy in there. I wasn’t unfair then, understand. Because they used a lot of fancy words that an ordinary section hand wouldn’t understand. So I held her down, while two of them worked on her. I trusted doctors then, believed in ‘em, because I was in love, and I didn’t want to see her die. A tumor they said it was, and it had to come out right away. So they stuck a leather strap in her mouth so she could bite off her screams, while they cut a way to get in there. And what did they find—nothing! Oh, they were sorry. Sure. They made a mistake. They had something they could talk about before their next little experiment. But what about me. They left me beggin’ her not to die. And I lost my wife.
Authors: Mahin, John Lee; Rackin, Martin; Ford, John
Categories: medicine; doctors
Attribution: John Lee Mahin (1902–1984), U.S. screenwriter, Martin Rackin, co-scenarist, and John Ford. Hannah Hunter (Constance Towers), Col. John Marlowe (John Wayne), The Horse Soldiers, Marlowe explaining his distrust of doctors (1959).
Based on the novel by Harold Sinclair.
