A Northern Field Hospital. 1862.
Field medicine was primitive and the Germ Theory of Disease wasn’t the standard knowledge it is today.
What Dr. Cuttaridge knows is that one out of every two men in his care died from something unknown.
What hospital Steward Sgt. MacElwain knows is that medical supplies are extremely limited and hard to replace, and that wasting time or medicine on the enemy is nuts. Then, a black freeman brings in a 16-year-old Rebel kid needing an amputation. FAST. Inexplicably, the surgeon thinks the operation should be done.
Germany. 1945.
Oberschaarfuhrer Dietz, Sr. Squad Leader of the camp, considers himself the raw material of a brilliant and prescient scientific mind. And it’s true. His question on this day: “Can a Gypsy’s kidney be transplanted into a Jew and the Jew survive?” Good thing for Dietz he has plenty of Gypsies and plenty of Jews for experimentation. Now, all he has to do is find a qualified Jew to do the surgery he has in mind. Who knew he would choose a ‘patient’ with a strong taste for freedom?
(The first successful transplant was accomplished in 1954; Dietz was, in fact, prescient. And this is a true story.)