Information
- BFI identifier18306
- Date1944 (Release)
- Production countryUnited Kingdom
- Production company
- SynopsisINTEREST. The discovery of the drugs prontosil and penicillin. Credits (58). Main corridor of St. Joseph's Hospital 1936. Dr. Thompson R.M.O. on his first morning at the hospital walks down the corridor pondering on the responsibility he has for 300 lives (149). He goes to casualty and asks the sister what is happening there. They have just received the victim of a motorbike crash who has been brought in late. Septicaemia has set in. The doctor reckons that the man will have to lose his leg. He thinks to himself that there must be some way to halt infection so that many limbs could be saved (225). He looks at another patient and tells him not to worry (271). He goes to the women's ward where one lady is suffering from childbirth fever and she has to be isolated (324). The doctor sees her husband and explains how the germs infect the womb after the baby has been born (369). An operating theatre. The doctor explains the precautions they take when the baby is born (420). The husband asks why they cannot use antiseptics but they have to be used at once, and anyway they cannot be used in the womb (483). At night in the office, he is reading about Prontosil (503). He sees a pharmacist who recommends that he goes to see the experiments being carried out at Queen Charlotte's Hospital (568). At the hospital, he sees how Prontosil works on rats (633). In the office, they discuss the drug and his colleague suggests that Thompson try it (680). He decides to try it on the dying woman. He injects it into her brain every four hours (743). Shots of her temperature chart which shows a gradual dropping of temperature (773). The woman eventually recovers (805 ft). RL.2 At the office, he does some research into the history of Prontosil, which was a German discovery. The French thought that it might be digested into the body and turn into two substances, one of which would be active against germs. Research in Britain proved this and that it was sulphanilamide that was the active substance (52). This could be produced on a wide scale. Sulphonamides were then found to be better (103). One of the wards at night. A pneumonia case. Sulphonamides are used to cure this as well as childbirth fever. Meningitis can also be cured with sulphonamides (191). Five years later, Dr. Thompson takes the same walk up the main corridor (249). In the staff room, they discuss the latest developments in the research of sulphonamides (275). The doctor reflects on the battle fronts and cures for war wounds (375). The doctor now in uniform dealing with war casualties. Sulphonamides are used as antiseptic for surface wounds (441). For the more serious wounds, they now use the newly discovered drug Penicillin. His last thoughts are that nothing will halt the progress of medicine (528 ft). (Shotlist) A tribute to the research workers and doctors who discovered the sulphonamide drugs which have revolutionised the treatment of pnuemonia, meningitis and other diseases. (Synopsis)
- Genre
- Subject
- Credits
Title
Conquest of a Germ (Original)
Category
Non Fiction (Public Record)This work is available from BFI Archive Sales
This work is available to view in the Mediatheque at BFI Southbank.
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35mm BW Positive - Polyester - Combined - Viewing
view all - Scripts / DocumentsOverview over production of films on reconstruction - Contains a list of films in various stages of preparation, on different aspects of reconstruction: Work, Health, Food, Education, Housing and Planning, Devastation in Europe and Post war careers. It also contains a list of films that have already been made - HFO-2-2-2
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- +Conquest of a Germ
Work - 18306 - 1944 (Release)
United Kingdom - Film - Non Fiction
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