Gunsmoke
New Doctor in Town
Season 17, Episode 5 · Aired 1971-10-11
Synopsis
Kitty finds and reads a letter from Doc Adams, who has disappeared from Dodge. Doc writes that he was so distraught over the death of a young girl under his care, who was suffering from an illness he didn't know how to treat, that he has gone East to re-enter medical school and catch up on something other than surgery for bullet wounds. (This was actually a ploy to give Milburn Stone, who had suffered a heart attack in the off season, time to fully recover.) Soon a new doctor, Dr. John Chapman, arrives. Chapman is a highly cultured, very standoffish New Orleans dandy. The townspeople treat him with disdain and refuse to see him. Chapman pretends not to care, but his feelings are deeply hurt. It takes an explosion at Newly's gun shop -- and a bone fragment pressing on Newly's brain, causing him to have hallucinations and become a dangerous maniac -- to get people to turn to Chapman for help.
In the series
This episode is part of Gunsmoke (1955–1975) on CBS.
The long-running western that turned Dodge City into a weekly moral court.
Key cast
- James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon
- Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty Russell
- Milburn Stone as Doc Adams
- Dennis Weaver as Chester Goode
- Ken Curtis as Festus Haggen