Prison Nurse

I found this book on e-Bay and just had to bid on the darn thing. Our nurse looks like she walked in on her patient without knocking. Doesn’t the prisoner looked surprised? My nursing instructor, Miss Manners, taught us to always knock before entering a room, and she gave us a tongue lashing if we walked into a patient’s room unannounced.

Dr. Louis Berg wrote this trashy novel. The former prison psychiatrist said his book is an account of what goes on behind prison walls. The Macaulay Company published the original book in 1934. The book was also turned into a movie in 1938

“Young Dr. Evans Dale was in prison, paying society’s just price for transgressing its commandments. This courageous outlaw was the man Judy Grayson loved, but when his life hung in the balance, the only person she could turn to was powerful, ambitious Dr. Hartmann, who wanted Judy for himself.

Judy Grayson dared to bring her gift of healing into an underworld of men—thieves, drug addicts, and murderers!”

I checked out Dr. Berg, and he was not only an author, but also a great scientific researcher. (Please visualize me rolling my eyes). In 1941, Dr. Berg theorized that radio soap operas were responsible for tachycardia, arrhythmia, emotional instability, and vertigo. To put his theory to the test, he listened to an episode from two radio serials, and then monitored his own blood pressure 30 minutes. His blood pressure increased. Dr. Berg concluded that radio soap operas were dangerous to their “unfortunate addicts,” and that middle age women, teenagers, and “the neurotic” were especially at risk for the shows’ ill effects.

I wonder if Dr. Berg listened to the radio show, The Woman in White?



The Woman in White, ran from 1938-1942, and was one of the first serials to focus on a hospital. (Cue in overly dramatic soap opera organ music).





In today’s episode of The Woman in White, heroic Karen Adams, star nurse, is faced with a dilemma. Only recently Nurse Adam’s boyfriend, the handsome, yet deceitful, Dr. Kirk Harding fathered a child with Janet Munson. To make matters worse, Janet has married Nurse Adams’ brother. And standing in the shadows is Dr. Lee Markham. Nurse Adams thinks of Dr. Markham as a friend, but he loves Nurse Adams from afar. Can he find the courage to tell Nurse Adams about his feelings before she throws her life away on a cad?

Will Nurse Adams, unaware of Dr. Harding's dalliance with Janet, become his wife?
Will Janet tell her new husband that he is not the father of her child?
Will Janet and Nurse Adams ever figure out that Dr. Harding is a dog, and kick him to the curb?

Turn in tomorrow for the next episode of The Woman in White (cue out organ music).

Like Dr. Berg, the show’s creator, Irna Phillips was an oddball. Soap opera historians agree that Phillips was a hypochondriac. She allegedly consulted a doctor everyday. In 1970, Phillips decided to take a European vacation and booked passage on a hospital ship. What is it with these artistic types anyway? There's no business like show business.