The Doctor's Duty (1913) [N/A]
Featuring:
Charles Ogle, Miriam Nesbitt, Ben F. Wilson
Written by:
Frank Hart
Directed by:
George Lessey
Release Date:
November 11, 1913
Original Title:
The Doctor's Duty
Genres:
Drama
Production Companies:
Edison Studios
Production Countries:
United States of America
Ratings / Certifications:
N/A
Runtime: 15
A socially-minded drama about a doctor who keeps his fiancée waiting at their engagement party, because a sick child needs help.
At the end of a long and tedious day Doctor Strong was just preparing for the relaxation of the evening, when a costermonger burst in upon him, and begged him to come to his dying child. The doctor went with the man to the bitter disappointment of his son, Jackie, who wanted his father to stay and play with him. After his father left, Jackie decided to give his toys a dose of medicine. Accordingly, he abstracted a bottle from the doctor's laboratory, and to show the toys just how it should be done, took a generous spoonful of the medicine. His mother entered at that moment, observed her son's action and looked at the bottle. The dreadful word "Poison" stared up at her in a frenzy of fear she dispatched a boy for the doctor. At the moment the boy arrived the doctor was fighting with all his strength for the life of his little patient. A terrible spasm of emotion shook him as he read the note. His son was in danger, dying perhaps. The coster's child would certainly die without his aid. A moment sufficed to show him clearly where his duty lay. He dispatched a hurried note to his wife and remained at the bedside of the poor man's child. Mrs. Strong called in another doctor and prepared a glass of mustard and water for Jackie. Jackie, however, suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. Shout and hunt as they would for him, it was all in rain. At length, after a long hunt, the almost frenzied mother discovered him in the jam closet eating jam in an endeavor to "take the nasty taste out of his mouth." The poor man's child passed over the crisis and the doctor hurried home in his car and found the other doctor and his wife engaged in a struggle with the mutinous Jackie, who exhibited an unexpected distaste towards the mustard and water. The doctor seized the bottle from which Jackie had taken the medicine. A great sob of relief burst from his throat, and turning to the doctor and his wife he showed them that he had scratched out the lower label with ink, but had omitted to cross out the poison mark. The medicine Jackie had taken was harmless.
