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Amputee Major 
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TITLE |
Citadel, The (1938) |
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DISABILITY |
General
Tubercolosis Typhoid Alcoholism Amputee |
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A young
doctor, Andrew Manson (Donat looking all of this 32 |
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years)
arrives to take up his first general practice in the Welsh |
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The resident
doctor whose assistant he will be is in bed with |
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some
undefined illness. Sitting down to his first meal with the
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doctor's
wife he has a few slices of bacon and a glass of |
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water, while
she has a full plate of meat and potatoes and a |
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pint of
stout. This broad brush portrayal of character and |
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injustice
sets the tone for the film. |
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Ralph
Richardson plays another doctor in the small town who |
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is a drunk
but dedicated. When there is an outbreak of |
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typhoid he
blames the sewers and together with Manson |
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blows up the
sewers forcing the council to rebuild them. |
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Unable to
cope with the doctor's wife Manson leaves for |
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another
nearby village where he works for a miners' welfare |
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committee.
There he discovers that a number of miners, |
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those
working with anthracite, have a particular chest |
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complaint.
But the head of the practice isn't interested. So |
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now married
to Christine (Russell) which was his only means |
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to get the
job he researches into the miners' disease using |
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guinea pigs.
There is the usual opposition from a |
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conservative
community but he is able to show that it is coal |
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dust, not
the valley mist as the miners think, that causes their |
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coughs. This
he calls silica inhalation and associates it with |
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60 odd years
later the film seems to be melodramatic but at |
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the time
must have been quite revealing about medical |
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One of the
doctor's early jobs is to amputate a coal miner's |
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arm when he
is trapped by a pitfall. |
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From the
novel by A.J. Cronin. |
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Notes
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