 The Cavalcade of America, sponsored by the DuPont Company, maker of better things for better living, through chemistry, presents Alfred Lundt as Dr. Norris. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is the Cavalcade of America, sponsored by the DuPont Company. Tonight with Alfred Lundt as our star, Cavalcade presents a new radio play based on the forthcoming biography Dr. Bethune by Ted Allen. Later in this broadcast, dedicated to the Red Cross, you will hear the Surgeon General of the United States Army, Major General James Carmighi, who will speak from Washington, D.C. DuPont has good reason to know and admire the splendid work done by men and women of mercy and medicine, people like Dr. Bethune, whose story you'll hear on tonight's Cavalcade, because DuPont, along with other chemical manufacturers, works side-by-side with the medical profession. From chemistry come many new drugs, like the sulfur compounds that are saving so many soldiers' lives in this war. Even a peacetime achievement like nylon is called up for military service. Most people have heard of nylon parachutes, but not so many know that nylon is being used today by surgeons in place of silk and gut. Army and Navy doctors are sewing up wounds with nylon sutures that are stronger and less irritating to the body tissues. This is only one example of chemistry working hand-in-hand with medical science. When this war is over, nylon sutures, along with cellophane protective wraps for surgical bandages and dressings, surgical gloves of neoprene chemical rubber, these and many other products of chemistry will continue their service as DuPont better things for better living through chemistry. And now tonight's drama, written especially for the Cavalcade of America by Robert Tolman. It is called... Life Tide. Listen, that sound is the first and last sound in your memory. It is the pulsating of a human heart. In it like the tides of the sea, the life blood of all humanity ebbs and flows. Remember that sound. Deep in the blood, let it be remembered as we bring you this chronicle of a man of our time who touched the fountain head of that most ancient and sacred of human mysteries. Blood of the living and blood of the fallen inseparably fused in his legacy to us, the blood bank, center and circumference of that mysterious ebb and flow, that life tide of the human race. In this Red Cross Month of 1943, the DuPont Company presents Alfred Lunt as Dr. Norman Bethune in Life Tide on the Cavalcade of America. Life Tide. Sometimes it is a fevered and irregular pulse. Life Tide of a man rested on hospital bed. One of four men. A New Englander, a Southerner, Canadian, a Chinese. All doctors. All dying of the same disease. Tuberculosis. Norman Bethune was the Canadian. Well, gentlemen, how about it? We're all doctors. What's the prognosis? How and when shall we die? How about you, Fisher? Well, this is the summer of 1926. I shall probably drop dead in Boston in the winter of 1934 while writing a prescription for a man who's nervous in digestion. Len, I shall die in China. China will be fighting for her life. I hope I will die fighting for her. And you, Bethune? Well, as for me, I've done all I'm likely to. Loved a beautiful woman, made her my wife. Wanted a career in surgery and did better than I expected. I won't stay here, but I won't go back to that life. I'll probably die out west somewhere, too sound likely, let's say, 1932. And I shan't be sorry to go. Everything from now on would be an anti-climax anyway. Lifetide. The pulse quickens, but the pace is more even. This is the pulse of sudden resolution. Death tugs at him. But in a moment, the tide will turn and flow. Resolution. I want. I want. He did not even know what it was he wanted. Maybe I could write a poem, paint a picture, something like that. I've got to do something before I go out. I've got to. But these things take time. Somehow, anyhow, time to accomplish something. He rises from sick bed, dresses himself, straw hat at rakeish angle, walks over to the main building of the sanitarium. I apologize to you gentlemen for interrupting what is undoubtedly a very important staff meeting, but I have come to the conclusion that you're wasting your time and mine. Wasting time? I've decided to appoint myself the doctor in charge of this case. That is your privilege, Dr. Matthew. Furthermore, I ask your permission to perform a surgical operation on myself. I will require at least one assistant in full equipment for artificial pneumothorax. Well, gentlemen, we've had bad results with that operation, Dr. Matthew. And as for your idea of pissing through your own chest cavity, what's the difference whether it's mine or somebody else's? Well, gentlemen, Dr. Matthew knows the dangers involved in this operation as well as we do. If he is willing to undertake it entirely at his own risk. Gentlemen, I am not only willing, I welcome the risk. Life tied. The blood course is strong and exultant. His health improved by his own skillful surgery. Norman Bethune has emerged from the shadows. He is a chief surgeon of Sacred Heart Hospital now in Montreal. Depression years. So many ill, so many sick at heart. 1935 the worst of all. So many needing him. Doctor, tell me there is a chance for my little girl. Already we have lost one and now the doctor at the clinic, he says I can never have another. I see. Well, there's one thing we could try. It's never been done in this country, certainly never on a child of ten, but we could try. Please try, doctor. Please do. We will have to remove one of her lungs altogether. It's a very unusual and dangerous operation. I must warn you in advance. How much will it cost, doctor? If I can give your child back to you alive and well, that's all the payment I want. Nurse. Yes, doctor. Silver clips quickly, small gauze. Here, doctor. Read the blood pressure. It's fallen another ten points. Pulse. Well? Thirty-two. That settles. I can't go on. Get the patient ready for a transfusion. But, doctor. Hurry up. We've no time to lose. But, doctor, I should have told you. We sent out an emergency call for donors that couldn't find any of the right blood type. You mean to tell me I'm going to lose a patient because some fool couldn't arrange a simple transfusion? After all, there's no way to force people to volunteer as blood donors, Dr. Bethel. I suppose not. Someone else should have finished this job. I've got type zero blood. Nurse. Yes, doctor? Get a sterile container. We'll take a liter of my blood and transfuse it into the patient while it's still warm. Doctor, I... Yes? What is it? Of course it's not my place to say so, but isn't it possible you'll be too weak to go on? Of course it's possible. In matters of life and death, there are always two possibilities. Pulse is nearly normal now, doctor. Good. Hooks, please. Retractors. Dr. Bethel, let me... It's all right, nurse. I'll be steady enough when the real job begins. Did you have fun there, Beth? The doctor brought in Beth. Little girl I ever saw. Is she yours, ma'am, sir? No, no, she's yours, Beth. Now take good care of her. She just came out of the hospital herself. My child as well. It was a very beautiful operation. I felt very happy doing it. Yes. I'll sleep tonight. Life tied. Sometimes it is a fanatic pulse. The heartbeat of a fear-crazed animal. Heartbeat of a mob. Bethune did not sleep that night. But that night in October 1935, the streets of Montreal, men with swastika arm bands, surged in the vanguard of a mob of hoodlums. Shock winners were broken. Innocent people set upon and beaten. That night Bethune witnessed the first blow by the Nazi fifth column to North America. Let's the old you swing him up. Well, please, my father has done nothing. Why don't you let us alone? Keep quiet, Jewish. We'll give you some of the same. He's old as hard as weak. He can't stand it. All right, then. Let him off easy. Only 10 licks with a rubber hose. Oh, no! They can stand at his feet. What's going on here? What are you doing to this man? Who are you? Bethune's my name. I'm a doctor. Aryan or non-Aryan. I come from a race you wouldn't understand. I'm a Scot. We're violent and unstable. We'd as soon kill a man like you as look at you. Now go home and take off those monkey suits before I beat your brains out with this walking stick. Lifetide, a mounting pulse of anger, tidal wave crashing over the breakwater. I tell you, the sickness of the world isn't in these hospital wards. It's out there in the streets. It draws the blood out of men's veins and leaves them there to die. Blood. That's what gives life and that's what they hate. They've smelled blood now and they'll not stop till they've spilled plenty of it. We must fight them wherever they strike. They struck in Spain. And Norman Bethune went there to fight as a doctor. Found Madrid in ruins. Ambulance is needed at once, desperately. He drove back to Paris to see what he could be done. Ambulance has cost money, too much money. Maybe his friends at home could help. They did. Ambulance makes pretty good time for a jalapé. Yeah. We should be in Madrid before dark. Yeah. Would you mind drawing up here a minute? I'd like to get a picture of that old man with a donkey. Okay. Now, make it snappy, will you? I get nervous on this road. This won't take a minute. Un momentito, por favor. Tengo que pasar, voy rápido. Yo me muero. That's funny, it wouldn't stop. No, get in. Let's get going. Wait a minute. Listen. Planes. German dive bombs. Now, what are they up to? There's no military or any other kind of target around here? Something in the valley over there. Come on, let's have a look. Oh, good God. I didn't see it with my own eyes, Beth, you know. Never believe it. Children with bloodstained rags wrapped around their arms and legs. Children without shoes, their feet swollen to twice their size, crying hopelessly from pain, hunger and fatigue. 200 kilometers of misery. We moved as many as we could. We might have spared ourselves the anguish. Most of them were bombed in Almeria again that night. We worked as long as we could by the orange glare of the burning buildings. In the darkness, the moans of the wounded children, the agonized mothers and the cursing of the men rose higher and higher in a pitch of intolerable intensity. One's body felt as heavy as the dead themselves, but empty and hollow. And in one's brain, burned a bright flame of hate for the enemy that had done this thing. You are listening to Alfred Lunt as Dr. Norman Bethune, pioneer of the blood bank in Lifetide, an original radio play on the cavalcade of America sponsored by the DuPont Company. Lifetide, almost motionless sometimes before its turning. War in Spain, 1937. Between offensives, Norman Bethune is preparing glass jars of precious blood plasma to be moved up to the sectors where the attack is to take place. Bethune and an elderly Spanish doctor have worked far into the night. They work in silence until... Idiot, look what you've done. Don't you know how valuable that stuff is? I... I am sorry, doctor. Dr. Bethune, he did not wish to do this. You are being unkind. I know what I want to say to him. I am sorry, Dr. Bethune. Since I am no good here, I will go and join my brothers on the battlefield. I have no bitterness, doctor. I am grateful for what you are doing for Spain. Goodbye. Yes, Dr. Bethune. Go after him. Tell him I apologize for my stupid, ill-tempered remarks. I've been a fool. I'm trying to blame my own failure on somebody else. Failure, doctor? I know I'm not doing this job properly. We ought to be sending blood right up to the front in refrigerated containers, but we haven't enough plasma on hand. I've been afraid to risk it out there in the line of fire. Doctor, if that is all that is worrying you, worrying no more, all Spain will give blood. You shall have all you need. It's a success, my blood bank. Being able to transfuse casualties in the front lines has saved a great many lives. I know now that the final battle will never be lost. Blood of the living will sustain the fallen and it will be given freely and with love. This thought is with me as I leave for China. Friends and comrades of China, hundreds of your soldiers have fallen fighting for you. They will live to fight again if you will do one thing for them. Give them a pint of your blood. No, no, no, it will not hurt you. In fact, it will make you feel good. I've given a whole liter without ill effects. Now, who will be the first to volunteer? I'm afraid it's hopeless, doctor. Well, what's the matter? Didn't they understand what I was saying? Yes, they understood. They are afraid to give their blood. It seems strange to you, I know. They are not afraid to die, but they are afraid to give blood. Bring one of the patients up here. The worst one. Go ahead, orderly. You heard what the doctor said. Yes, commandant. I go to Obey. Nurse, hand me that alcohol and sterile needle. Here, doctor. Careful. I'll set you down gently. Good. Now then, nurse, help me here, will you? You are going to transfuse the patients yourself, doctor? Yes, all of them, if necessary. A woman, Bethune, lay down beside the dying Chinese soldier. And the life tide began to flow from his veins into the wounded man's body. A little circle of peasants watched in dismay. Then they witnessed a miracle. The man they thought dead moved. Sat up. What happened? I'm home again. These are the people of my village. Yes, yes, these are your people, but they wouldn't give a little blood to save your life. What kind of people are you anyway? Now look, he lives. Orderly, bring up another of the wounded men. Take this one. I am very old and maybe blood is dried up in my veins, but I would like to give it for a soldier if you think it is good enough. No, no. Do not put women's blood in a soldier. Let me. I am strong. Let me. I want to give. Take care. Three o'clock in the morning, December, North China, near Linshu with the Eighth Route Army. Mud walls, mud floor, mud bed, white paper curtains, mud and chloroform. Cold. Men with wounds. Is this one alive? Yes, he lives. Technically speaking, he is alive. Give him some saline imprevenously. Perhaps the innumerable, tiny cells of his body will remember. They may remember the hot, salty sea, their ancestral home, their first food. With a memory of a million years, they will remember other tides, other oceans and life being born of the sea and the sun. And this one? Will he run along the road beside his mule at another harvest with cries of happiness? No. That one will never run again. But don't pity him. Pity would diminish his sacrifice. He did this without sentimentality. For China. For Japanese prisoners. Cut away that bloodstained uniform. Lay him beside the others. There they are. Twenty operations tonight. Sixteen heroes and four enemies. Blood separated them. Blood has brought them together. Administer the anesthetic, please. Blubsners. Dr. Bethel, there is no anesthetic. Not even chloroform? Not even chloroform. Are you game, soldier? I will not feel it at all. I promise you, doctor, if you can make me well so I can fight again. All right, Blubs. Here, doctor. Oh, throw him away. Look at the holes in him. What a joke. Operate with my bare hands. Doctor, you will excuse me. But you think you ought to. There is a cut in your finger there, this infection. I know what I'm doing. But before I begin, orderly? Yes, doctor Bethel. Go to your commanding officer. Tell him to contact China Aid Council in New York and arrange transportation for me back to the capital. I'm going home to America. You are leaving us, doctor Bethel? I must. Americans have got to be made to realize that China is fighting the first battle of our war. If I can tell them, I, who've been here and see it, maybe they'll help us. It is too bad you must go, doctor. You know what the commandant say to the men when he starts an offensive? Must I? You will not think it disrespectful, if I tell you? No, of course not. The commandant says, you have your marching orders, attack. Bethel is here to take care of the wounded. He says that, does he? Yes. It's helpful. Yes. Norman Bethel died that night. An infection caused by operating without a 15 cent pair of rubber gloves. Thank you, Alfred Lunt. Ladies and gentlemen, in presenting the story of doctor Bethel on the cavalcade of America tonight, DuPont offers not only a salute to a great memory, but in an exact sense a tribute to the living reality of his work. It seemed most appropriate at this moment to give renewed emphasis to the Red Cross campaign as a symbol of the work done by men and women of mercy and medicine. It is in this spirit that we present to you now the surgeon general of the United States Army, Major General James Carr McGee. General McGee will speak to you from Washington. It is a great pleasure to have this brief opportunity to speak of the physical welfare of the vast army we are mobilizing. Our military might encircles half the globe. Our men of arms are stemming the hordes of darkness that seek to destroy us. They are meeting the enemy at far outposts in the air on the face of the earth and under the surface of the seas. No hazard is great enough to daunt them. The medical service which is being rendered to these men to whose care the life of the nation now is entrusted is excellent. This is a fact in which all of us may take the utmost pride. In total war, the whole world is a battlefield and every individual has some part to play, some obligation to discharge in order to ensure victory. The civilian front represents only another aspect of the military front. If one fails, the other fails. And the success of the one stimulates the other to succeed. Since the war of 1914 to 1918, there have been brilliant advances in both scientific medicine and medical military tactics. The United States Army is reaping the full advantage of these discoveries and developments. One of the serious problems on the battlefield has been the restoration of blood volume in cases of shock and haemorrhage. The development of dried human plasma has placed in the hands of military surgeons one of the most effective means of combating those conditions which are so often rapidly fatal. Let me impress upon you that all of this plasma is donated by public-spirited citizens. The donation of blood not only may save the life of a soldier, but it also makes of each contributor an active participant in this bitter struggle in which we are engaged to save everything which we hold to be noble and worthy. The donor may feel proud of this contribution, for he today that sheds his blood for me shall be my brother. The American Red Cross is doing splendid work in collecting the blood for the armed forces. It merits the fullest support from the people of the United States, and I know that such support will continue to be forthcoming. You have just heard the Surgeon General of the United States Army, Major General James Carmighi, who spoke from the nation's capital. Anyone who saw the motion picture Wake Island will never forget the character Smaxy played by the popular new star, William Bendix. Next week, Mr. Bendix makes his first appearance on Cavalcade in a new comedy melodrama, The Cook on the PT Boat Writes Home, an exciting story of the exploits of the crew of an unnamed PT boat as it stalks the enemy off the Solomon. Tune in Cavalcade next week to hear William Bendix in a program filled with thrills and laughter. The Cook on the PT Boat Writes Home. Cavalcade wishes to thank the 20th Century Fox Film Corporation for permission to use material from the biography Dr. Bethune by Ted Allen, subject of a forthcoming 20th Century Fox film. The orchestra and musical score on tonight's program were under the direction of Don Burris. This is Clayton Collier sending best wishes from Cavalcade sponsor the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware. This program came due from Washington and New York. This is the National Broadcasting Company.