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Did I ever tell you you look
cute with your shirt off?
No.
I think I know why.
Now you made me lose count.
I gotta start all over again.
- Sleep! I wanna sleep!
- Hoo-ha.
- Will you hold it down?
This is very distracting.
- Mail call, sirs.
Keep away from him.
He'll start all over again.
Captain B.
J.
Hunnicutt.
Something in a plain, brown envelope.
- [Chuckles]
- They oughta disguise those things more.
- It's the Surgical Journal, Radar.
- Oh, yeah?
I seen one of those once.
I'd rather look
at the outsides of people.
Hey, Hawkeye.
You got your newspaper
from home.
- Get away from me with that.
- That's the Crabapple Cove Courier.
You love that.
I used to love it.
Same stupid news week after week.
Where's this month's Journal from
the Institute for Applied Nudism?
Wanna read Major Burns's issue
of Popular Mechanics?
Sometimes the ads go pretty far.
Radar, a picture of a three-way toilet valve
does not go pretty far.
I just deliver 'em.
I don't make 'em up.
Look at this: "How to provide a gastric
reservoir in a total resection of the stomach.
"
Look, if you can't read without moving
your lips, at least turn the sound off.
- What's eating you?
- My back is eating me.
- Still?
- I have a hungry back.
- You want a massage?
- Not unless you put your shirt on.
- How about if I x-ray your back later?
- I did already.
- There's nothing there.
- Nothing? No spine, nothing?
The pain goes
clear through to my lung.
- I thought maybe I had a spot.
- Or a Fido or a Rover.
- Oh, you're really cute.
- [Chuckles]
If I die from this, will you read the joke
at my grave?
You know, I'd really dig that.
[Chuckles]
Criminy! I'd rather read
the stupid newspaper.
I'm gonna tell you right now
what's gonna be in there.
Another article about
incredibly average Vernon Parsons.
- Who's that?
- Some dunce I went through
med school with.
Every week, he's in the newspaper.
He's being put in charge of this.
- He's being promoted to that.
- So what?
He's incredibly average.
The only reason he gets all this stuff
is he's back there with no competition.
He's sitting back there,
resting on his fallen arches.
I'm over here dancing with rats.
You'll live probably.
Listen to this
"Transposition of the ileum
in ascending colon.
"
- What an idiot that guy was.
- By the same guy who advocated
total gastrectomy in '49.
- I read that.
Fascinating.
- Vernon must have his own press agent.
I can't pick up my hometown newspaper
without reading his name.
Damn it! There he is again!
"Dr.
Vernon Parsons has been awarded
a hundred thousand dollar grant
at Boston Hospital for a two-year study
of infectious disease in mice.
"
They oughta give him the disease
and split the dough with the mice.
Don't they realize
how incredibly average this man is?
I'm going to breakfast.
[Groans Loudly]
- Worse, huh?
- Do you see a knife handle
sticking out of my back?
- Look, I hate to give advice.
- Good.
- You never exercise.
- I wrestle periodically with the nurses.
If you'd just do something physical
once in a while, you'd feel better.
You're right.
I feel a lot better.
Father, you feeling a bit
under the weather today?
- I have been dragging a bit.
- Not eating, I see.
- Food seems to have lost its allure.
- Can I eat your sausage, Father?
- By all means, Radar.
- They're really good today.
Extra grease.
If you'll pardon the indelicacy,
Father, and with all due respect
to your collar, why don't you stop by
the dispensary and get a good flushing out?
- [Grunts]
- We got here too late
for the hard-boiled eggs.
All they have
is scrambled socks.
You should've been in the army before they
taught chickens to lay powdered eggs.
World War One, I ate turnips for breakfast
every day for a month.
- My tongue smelled like
Arthur Murray's footbath.
- You feeling all right, Father?
- Why do you ask?
- You keep pulling at your fingers.
- They too close to your hands?
- I seem to be a little arthritic this morning.
- Off his feed too.
- You gonna finish your coffee, Father?
No, no.
Go right ahead, Radar.
Let me see
your eyes, Father.
What do you think,
Colonel? How's his sclera?
Slightly icteric.
Let's see
underneath your tongue, Father.
- That tongue's as yellow
as the streak down my back.
- Don't touch that coffee, Radar.
- Why?
- The "Swiss Family Hepatitis"
is swimming around in there.
Oh! Gee!
Ooh, ick! I ate his sausage.
- Well, I didn't touch them.
- I know, Father.
But it was yours.
I mean, no offense,
but, wow ooh, ick!
Let's nip this in the bud.
I don't want to live through
another outbreak of camp jaundice.
B.
J.
, give Father Mulcahy a blood test.
Hawkeye, examine the staff.
Give 'em a shot of
gamma globulin.
Radar, check the latrine area.
See if the water
supply's polluted.
I'll talk to the cook.
- Let's get busy.
- [B.
J.
] Come on, Father.
It was just laying out there in the open.
I wasn't going through your private papers.
- Relax, Frank.
I just wanna see your body.
- Don't be such a rude rodney.
- Frank, there's hepatitis going around.
- Hepatitis?
- Yeah.
Let me see your eyes.
- Are they yellow?
- How's my liver? Is it tender?
- How should I know? It's your liver.
Well, feel it.
- How does that feel?
- [Giggles] Tickles.
- Frank, try to control yourself.
- Something's wrong with me.
- Yeah? Ever since Margaret got engaged?
- No!
Since I've been getting
shortness of breath and heart palpitations.
- Feel my chest.
- Not tonight, darling.
I have a headache.
I have a lump here under the sternum,
and that's not supposed to be there.
- Is it?
- Frank, go like this.
Feels like a marble.
Not like an aggie, more like an immie.
Look, I haven't got time
to feel in your chest for marbles.
Let me get some blood.
I'll give you
a shot in the behind, and I'll get out of here.
[Whimpers]
Look, while you're here?
- Mm-hmm?
- Will you check my arms?
I think my arms are getting longer.
Take two bananas
and call me in the morning.
- Feel under my armpit.
- Not for five bucks.
I've got swollen nodes,
and they're getting bigger and bigger.
- You know, I saw that in a movie once?
- Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
This guy's nodes got so big,
eventually they took over Minneapolis.
And you call yourself
a doctor.
Frank, will you for cripe's sake
drop your driveling
your hypochondria
and your pants in that order.
You're not such hot stuff.
I just read about
someone from your hometown.
He got a hundred thousand dollar grant
from Boston Hospital
for playing with mice.
Don't taunt me, Frank.
I'm holding a sharp object.
A hundred thousand smackers.
That's probably a thousand bucks a mouse.
Ow! Ouch, that hurts!
Take it out! It hurts! Take it out!
- I already took it out, Frank.
- Feels like you left a rock in there.
Maybe one slipped down
from your head.
You broke off
a needle in me, didn't ya?
These few, lovely moments with you
have contributed more
to the pain in my back then my army cot,
and that's going some.
If you care anything about human life,
you'll feel my lumps before you go.
Leave 'em under my pillow.
I'll give 'em a squeeze before I go to sleep.
- [Knocking]
- Come in.
- I have to have a look at your body, Margaret.
- Ha-ha, don't you wish.
- Lie down in the bed
and let me feel your liver.
- That'll be the day.
- Get out of here.
- Margaret, we may be facing
a hepatitis epidemic.
- I have to examine you.
You're gonna get a shot too.
- So are you, kiddo.
Let's start small.
Show me your eyes.
- Outside.
This bulb is too yellow.
- You're serious, aren't you?
Believe me.
I wouldn't be walking around
poking people's livers if I didn't have to.
- All right.
Show me under your tongue.
- No.
That's out.
- What?
- I will not show you my tongue.
Especially not underneath.
- How 'bout if I show you mine first?
- I can look at my own tongue.
- It's okay.
- Okay? It's gorgeous.
- I knew it.
- I have to have some blood.
Let me have a vein.
[Sighs Loudly]
Here.
Hurry up.
Well, you're certainly braver about this
than my last patient.
- Who was that?
- Frank.
- [Scoffs]
- He's afraid his body's being attacked.
He has very little
to worry about.
How's your fiance Lieutenant Colonel
Donald Penobscott of West Point?
Fine.
He's doing very well.
Well, that certainly sounds
extremely satisfactory.
- Can I confide in you?
- Sure.
I've been getting some very strange letters
from Donald's mother.
- Like what?
- Like she's welcoming me into the family.
Well, listen.
You're not all that bad.
She's welcoming me, but in a very
left-handed way.
Listen to this.
"Dear Margaret, What a pleasure
it will be to include a Houlihan in our clan.
"I've only known two Houlihans before,
and they were both charming.
"One was a chauffeur,
who we liked very much
"although we had to let him go
because he drank.
"And the other was a young girl
who worked for us as a maid.
We still send her Christmas cards
every year at the state hospital.
"
If this woman wants to start a fan club
for you, tell her to forget it.
She has me sick.
I don't know what
she's telling Donald.
What difference does it make? He loves you.
He's not in love with the chauffeur.
Ready?
- Come on, Margaret.
You're taking
all the fun out of it.
- Yes, that's right.
I am.
Margaret, this is not merely
a dream come true.
- Gamma globulin goes better
in a person's caboose.
- Not this person's.
- Margaret, you're a nurse.
- Oh, all right.
Let's get it over with.
My sentiments exactly.
Let us not dawdle over a moment like this.
Let us treat it as a professional
encounter of the most
Oh, Margaret, may I pause on this occasion
to express a few thoughts?
- If you say one word
- Oh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't.
Not a word.
But-But if I did, that word would be
"magnificent.
" Would that be bad?
- Will you please give me the shot?
- Okay.
Okay.
There.
How dare you come in here
on the pretext of giving me a shot
and then stand there ogling me
as though I were a sideshow attraction.
Boy, I show you a little appreciation,
and you hit the roof.
- What do you want from me?
- Respect.
Simple respect.
I expect nothing more,
and I'll accept nothing less.
Hey, that's pretty good.
You got me with that.
- Good.
- I mean, you really did.
I bet that would work
with Donald's mother.
- What?
- Maybe not those words, but that attitude.
- Simple respect.
- Maybe.
You know, in some ways,
you really are magnificent.
- And not just on the outside.
- Thank you.
- You wanna give me a shot?
- Buzz off!
Just asking.
[Man On P.
A.
] Attention all personnel.
Incoming.
Incoming.
Welcoming committee to the helipad.
There will be a slight lull in our lull.
Welcoming committee to the helipad.
There will be a slight lull in our lull.
I don't know what we're gonna do
with this boy over here.
- Oh, God.
- I sent for Hawkeye.
- I think we need another opinion.
- How'd this happen?
He's a tank driver.
When a shell gets inside one of those tubs
it just ricochets around,
chews up everything in its path.
- Where do you start?
- I'm here.
What's the matter with you?
You're all bent over.
- Who told you?
- You're turning into a question mark.
And the question is how I got this way.
Pretty bad, huh?
Among other things,
he has no stomach to speak of.
- I know they could deal
with this down in Seoul.
- But the trip might kill him.
And if one of us tried it
up here, we might kill him.
- What do you think?
- You're the chief surgeon.
You tell me.
He'll need a partial gastrectomy,
maybe even a total.
I think B.
J.
oughta do it.
He's the closest
we come to an expert on this.
Expert? I've never done this before.
I've only read about it.
Well, that puts you one up on
the rest of us.
Work from the book.
- Suppose I make a mistake?
- Suppose we send him down to Seoul
on the buckboard express?
- He'll be off your conscience,
but he won't be any more alive.
- It's a tough choice.
Fine.
Take your time.
What are you gonna do?
All right.
I'll do it.
Look at this.
I'm sweating already.
Go scrub.
Carmine, prep him.
Pierce, see me in my office later
about your back.
Why? Is something wrong with my back?
[Hawkeye Groans]
[Mumbling]
"In the colon, transected"
- What the hell are you doing?
- I wanna see if you got hepatitis
- before you put your hands in that guy.
- I gave myself a blood test.
- Leave me alone, will ya?
- Mind if I give you a shot
while you're scrubbing up?
I'm trying to read.
Will you get out of here?
Look, I gotta jab 15 people
before I go to sleep tonight.
- Otherwise this entire staff
will be flat on its livers.
- See me after the operation.
I'll be waiting at the stage door
with a flower in my buttonhole.
- The Swamp, 10:00.
- Good luck, Beej.
Let's see, "The
terminal ileum is divided
five inches proximal
to the ileocecal valve.
"
God.
Let's jump to the end and see how
this operation turns out.
- How you feeling, Father?
- Uh, fine actually.
- Well, weak, really.
- I brought you some juice.
- Oh, thank you.
- Your blood test showed hepatitis.
Probably infectious.
We're gonna have
to isolate you for a week or so.
You mean I can't see people?
How will I hear confessions tomorrow night?
Well, maybe they can write their sins on pieces
of paper and slip them under the door.
- Possibly.
- Then we can auction off the pieces of paper
and make a fortune
for the orphanage.
How am I going to
administer the sacraments?
How can I give Holy Communion?
I can't place the Eucharist on their tongues.
- I'll infect them all.
- You're gonna have to take
a rain check for a while.
What if somebody needs
last rites in the O.
R.
?
People are depending on me.
I really don't feel all that bad, you know.
- You wanna kill yourself?
- Well, at least let's rig up something
so I can hear confessions
through a flap in the tent.
- Father, you have to rest a little.
- No, no, no, no.
Look here.
You don't understand.
Their souls are in my charge.
- Father, you're sick.
- Well, so are you.
Look at your back.
That's not stopping you
from doing your work.
All right.
I'll work out
a light confession schedule for you.
Maybe people can cut down
on their sinning and give you a break.
- I'm hearing confessions, and that's it.
- All right.
Get a little rest.
Nobody's pushing
me around.
Good afternoon, Klinger.
I'm checking for hepatitis.
- Drop your pants and show me your eyes.
- Forget it, sir.
The last time I dropped my pants,
they put me in the army.
The next time I drop 'em, it's to stick 'em
out the porthole and wave bye-bye.
- How are your eyes?
- Bloodshot from pounding potatoes.
Come on, Klinger.
I want to get home
and slip into some comfortable traction.
Here.
They look like potato eyes, right?
You are what you mash.
- Show me your tongue.
- Gladly.
- Let me see the underside.
- Wait, I'll stand on my head.
What are you so cranky about?
Because I drew K.
P.
30 straight days
for punching out Zale.
I should get a medal for that.
We're supposed to fight the enemy, aren't we?
You're fighting Zale again?
What about?
Aw, it's stupid.
He insulted the Toledo Mud Hens.
I take it that's a baseball team
and not yesterday's lunch.
The trouble is
I got a short fuse.
My wife, Laverne, keeps writing me,
"When you get angry, count to 10
and ask St.
Anthony for help.
"
I go one, two, three pow!
Once I got to eight.
I never needed any help from St.
Anthony.
- I'm too hot-blooded.
- Let me draw a little of
that hot blood from your vein.
- I really gotta work on it.
- Yeah, right.
- I can't stand myself when I lose my temper.
- Hold still, will ya?
Sure.
So he insults the Mud Hens.
What does he know?
I should get excited over an ignorant remark
from a stupid idiot like him?
- Hold it, will ya?
Talk with the other hand.
- Sure.
I'm not wasting my time on him.
That dumb jerk!
- Excuse me.
- You want me to stab myself?
Just hold still.
- Right.
- All right?
He's always making cracks about my lingerie.
He just doesn't have the guts.
I'd like to see him
in a *** girdle!
Sorry.
I didn't mean to
raise my voice.
Can I have a little cooperation? The pain
in my back is beginning to grow roots.
I gotta calm down.
I don't care what he says about me.
But he mentions the Mud Hens again,
he's getting it right in the ***!
- Will you watch it?
- I'm sorry.
Did I hurt ya?
Fortunately,
I'm in a permanent duck.
Look, during a physical examination,
I'm supposed to get physical, not you.
- Now get over there.
- Sir.
- Give me that.
- Here, take it.
- Sir?
- Uh-huh?
If you find out I got hepatitis,
I'm gonna kiss Zale right on the mouth.
I'm very happy for you.
"The ileocolic segment
is turned upward
and the end of the ileum anastomosed
to the end of the esophagus" blues.
Everything under control?
You know what this reminds me of?
Assembling those toys I got as a kid.
Fold Flap "A" into Slot "B.
"
I could never tell
my flap from my slot.
- You can't find that kid's Flap "A,"
don't guess.
- I'm all right.
It's amazing how much you can tell
from a few drops of blood though, isn't it?
- Yep.
- You could tell everything from
a guy's blood, can't you?
Everything that's
fit to print.
- It's really sort of fascinating, isn't it?
- I'm all a-tingle myself.
- What are you worried about, Radar?
- Oh, nothing, uh.
Well, I mean, it was just
that I was wondering if
if you could tell if a guy has any,
you know, special problems.
Like, uh, like he's anemic
or, uh, he isn't red-blooded enough or
- What's the matter?
- Well, I'll tell ya.
Um, sometimes I go out with the guys.
You know, like to Rosie's Bar?
We really have a good time.
We're always, uh, singing
and laughing and telling
what we're gonna do after the war.
Then a couple of guys will start joking
with some of the business girls.
And before I know it,
I start to feel different.
- Different?
- I get sleepy.
And you're afraid there's something
wrong with you?
No.
Is there?
Yeah.
You're suffering from
a severe case of decency.
I mean, I really wish I could have a good time
like they do, you know?
I mean, just bust out and drink
and tell lies to strange girls
and come back to camp the next morning
without any sleep and throw up all day.
I really wish I could
at least just once.
Look, everybody's
different, Radar.
You're here with a bunch of guys
you'll probably never see again.
You don't have to
try to be like them.
You know, most people act crazy
when they're out of town.
- Hmm.
- But you're different.
You always take a little bit
of Iowa with you wherever you go.
That's nice.
Don't try to change that.
Someday you'll meet somebody
that you'd like to introduce to your mom.
And instead of taking
advantage of her
you'll offer her a gift
you've been working on all your life.
Yourself.
And believe me,
you won't get sleepy.
- You know what I mean?
- Yeah.
[Sniffles]
Thanks.
I hate to say this at this point,
but would you drop your pants?
Now, the first time
they did this operation
they came up with an ileocolic segment
that was gangrenous.
This guy doesn't even have that end
of his ileum, so I guess we can forget that.
Did you do a splenectomy,
or did the shell fragment do it for you?
I did some.
The North Koreans did the rest.
My God, don't they know this poor guy's
still got a few payments left on his house?
I guess his neighbors down at the draft board
didn't mention that in his letter of reference.
- Cut.
- It looks to me like
you oughta bejust about done.
One more stitch, I'll be ready
to start closing.
How's he doing?
Stable, Doctor.
I think he's going to make it.
[Chuckles]
Cut.
There.
[Exhales]
I just knitted a soldier.
- ##[Big Band]
- I was supposed to give you a shot
in the Swamp at 10:00.
- What are you doing here?
- Hawkeye, Hawkeye,
Hawkeye, Hawkeye, Hawkeye!
I did it! I saved him.
He's alive!
- Louis Pasteur couldn't have put it better.
- I'm a life-giver.
Congratulations.
Really, I mean it.
Show me your tongue.
My tongue? That's small potatoes.
I'll show you my butt!
Hey! Hey, everybody.
All right, all right,
all right.
All right.
- Give me your attention.
- A simple "Ah" would be sufficient.
In celebration of the world's
most difficult surgery
and the world's most
wonderful surgeon
snatching life out
of the jaws of death
we unveil for you now,
the Hippocrates of Ouijongbu.
[Whistling, Cheering]
## [Singing]
- ## [Continues]
- Dip, Baker, dip!
## [Ends]
[Cheering]
- Uh-huh.
- There's no contamination
of the water supply.
The patient we had here
three weeks ago showed up
in Seoul with a severe case
of infectious hepatitis.
Let's hope Father Mulcahy caught it
from him, and this will be the end of it.
[Exhales]
I'm for that.
- Okay.
Now, what's with you?
- What's with me?
You been walking around
like Lon Chaney's stand-in.
At first I thought it was pleurisy.
Then I thought maybe a disc.
- I don't know what it is.
- I hear you've been reading
your hometown newspaper.
You think they're
poisoning the ink?
I think maybe you haven't
made up your mind
how you feel about being over here,
feeding the fleas.
As far as I'm concerned, the fleas can eat
out at the Chinese restaurant down the street.
How do you feel about spending
the war over here, even though
you're not incredibly average.
- I guess I'm angry.
- How do you feel about being angry?
[Sighs] You think I'm mad,
and I won't admit it, huh?
I think you're gonna come out of this war with
a merit badge for tying yourself up in knots.
Here, take a belt of that.
Can I tell you something
as a friend? A tough friend?
Tough friends last longer.
When I was an enlisted man, I was short.
Not like I am now.
For a while there,
I thought I'd look taller
if I could knock a few of the big guys
flat on their backs.
Then it dawned on me.
I was just fighting myself
and using their ribs to hurt my hands on.
Fig Newtons and Scotch.
Listen, it's too big a world to be
in competition with everybody else.
The only guy I have to get better
than is who I am right now.
And in your case,
that's tough enough.
They're great
if you dunk 'em.
So what do I do about
incredibly average Vernon Parsons?
Relax.
Let him have his little research grant.
Live and let live.
And then just to give yourself a little
present, send him an anonymous letter.
That's not a bad idea.
I could tell him I saw him
cheating on an exam once.
Tell him you're filing
a malpractice suit.
- I'm beginning to feel better.
- Tell him you're filing a paternity suit.
[Laughing]
Doctor, Doctor, I can walk.
- Hey, B.
J!
- Quiet.
Quiet.
- You know what your trouble is?
- Yes, I'm dying.
- That's not your trouble.
- Right.
My trouble is
I'm not dying fast enough.
- You don't get enough exercise.
- Uh-huh.
The cure for a hangover is to get the blood
out of your keister and into your brain.
- Watch this.
- What?
Hey, Hawkeye, come on.
Don't do that.
That's dangerous.
Are you kidding?
I'm in perfect control.
Come on.
Don't fool around, Hawkeye.
- Ow! My head.
- [Hawkeye] My back!
- My head!
- [Hawkeye] My back!