Ben Casey

Dr. Ben Casey is at odds with the medical board, particularly Dr. Zorba and Dr. Jensen, because of his manner toward interns. Under a reprimand, Casey tries to persuade the board to approve neurosurgery on nine-year-old Pete Salazar. After the first of three operations on the boy, Casey is accidentally jabbed with a needle while administering a rabies test to a female patient. During his thirty-day wait for a life-or-death prognosis, he is given permission to resume the surgery.

Dr. Michael Waldman, a former professor of Caseys and a former colleague of Zorbas, comes to the hospital with a cardiovascular ailment diagnosed as fatal. Casey and Zorba want to try a new surgery on him, but the medical board is opposed.

Casey has Walter Tyson for a patient, the president of a large corporation in difficulties, who makes treatment impossible by ordering him about. Zorba and Dr. Jensen try to dissuade him from withdrawing, because his patient is a big donor to the hospital.

Dr. Dave Taylor returns to the hospital to do research, but Dr. Casey diagnoses him as a ""hospital bum"" afraid of competition, and also treats a womans hypochondria.

Orderly Nick Kanavaris good friend Krikor Dakopian is committed by his family to the psychiatric ward. Dr. Casey, however, thinks the ailment is likely to be responsive to neurosurgery.

Expectant mother Ellen Parker loses her child after an auto accident. Casey examines her and finds that she is subject to chronic seizures, and these, not the accident, are responsible for the loss of her baby.

""The faith that looks through death."" (Wordsworth)

A clean, well-lighted place.

Hes not quite himself, or is he?

From another point of view.

""And his name that sat on him was Death.""

A consummation devoutly to be wished.

""But one thing is needful.""

A painstaking diagnosis.

""Brave in his burning pride.""

Last straws.

A gentle occupation.

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear; Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong; The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work; The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck; The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands; The wood-cutters song—the ploughboys, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown; The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else; The day what belongs to the day—at night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs. Come! some of you! still be flooding The States with hundreds and thousands of mouth-songs fit for The States only. Walt Whitman, Leaves of Gr

A sabbath diversion.

Dr. Casey tries to help a lawyer kick her morphine habit, but encounters resistance, lies and manipulation when she gets a guileless young man to smuggle dope into her hospital room. He is visiting his mother, who is in the hospital for treatment of injuries received in a beating. (Part 1 of 2)

The business has its allure.

Although hes still an intern, Jimmy Peabody is raising funds to finance a medical clinic of his own, and one of the sources hes depending on is wealthy Adam Garrett, an elderly patient at County General.

""Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.""

The ones that got away...

A father assaults his son over a youthful fascination with Nazism.

""Thats an old Spanish proverb.""

If there were dreams to sell,       What would you buy? Some cost a passing bell;       Some a light sigh, That shakes from Lifes fresh crown Only a rose-leaf down. If there were dreams to sell, Merry and sad to tell,       And the crier rang the bell,       What would you buy? A cottage lone and still,       With bowers nigh, Shadowy, my woes to still,       Until I die. Such pearl from Lifes fresh crown Fain would I shake me down. Were dreams to have at will, This best would heal my ill,       This would I buy.

""Love doth know no fullness nor no bounds."" (Keats)

Fear of the unknown.

""A fence around the void.""—Hawaiian saying

Irreducible affinities.

The indeterminate.

Dr. Ernest Farrow, a once brilliant neurosurgeon, is sent to County General for a refresher course. Learning that Farrow is paralyzed by self-doubt and recurring nightmares from the death of a patient, Casey attempts to assuage his colleagues fears and coax him back into the operating room.

The imponderables of personality.

From the wreck of my past, which hath perishd,    Thus much I at least may recall, It hath taught me that which I most cherishd    Deserved to be dearest of all: In the desert a fountain is springing,    In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing,    Which speaks to my spirit of thee. Lord Byron

""The summer is over...""

The power of personality.

A picture is most eloquent.

Lamour et la mort.

""As to moral courage, he [Napoleon] had very rarely found it, he said, that of two hours past midnight; which is to say, courage unawares.""

The threshold of knowledge.

A romantic ballet.

Cleopatra and the clepsydra.

Various strings and attachments.

Dr. Green practices the best medicine, but Dr. Zorba and Dr. Casey are rather saturnine on his manner.