Episode 1
A young husband must inform his pregnant wife that she's been diagnosed with fatal leukemia. Concern now shifts to the expected baby's survival. Dr. Styner wages an extended battle in the delivery room for the newborn's survival.
Episode 2
Eight-year old Jonno's speech is garbled because of a cleft palate he was born with. Now kids mock him and he's retreating into a lonely world of his own. Grandfather's too elderly to do anything. What can teenage brother Pete do to help.
Episode 3
After collapsing on stairs, winsome young Annie is discovered to have a heart condition. Now doctors must operate to save her, but can they after her heart stops.
Episode 4
On the way westward in the year 1867, a wagon train in a barren wilderness is suddenly hit by an outbreak of Cholera, and the one doctor among them is at odds to contain it.
Episode 5
An alcoholic wife and mother of two faces the nearly overwhelming prospect of going through withdrawal and overcoming cirrhosis of the liver before she can begin the more difficult process of attempting to conquer her addiction to drink.
Episode 6
A father has a car accident leaving his 10 year old son in a coma. As a team of specialists attempts to save the boy's life, his family tries to deal with the anger and guilt.
Episode 7
A dramatization of the outbreak of pneumonic plague in Los Angeles in 1924. The title refers to the 10-day period with no new cases, which must be waited out before the quarantine can be lifted.
Episode 8
A pianist, blind since childbirth, learns he can regain his sight with a corneal transplant. This delicate operation involves the substitution of a new cornea for the injured one, in this case scarred by exposure to lime.
Episode 9
One stormy night a soaking wet woman arrives at hospital and announces she is about to have a baby. In addition to the complications of a difficult birth she bears the secret that she is unwed and alone.
Episode 10
Swedish immigrant Albert plays viola in a symphony orchestra. But his hearing is getting worse, so he's let go. Also, his social life is being held back. An operation can correct the problem, but will it stay fixed, and how to pay.
Episode 11
A young and healthy woman is diagnosed with breast cancer only a week before her wedding. Surgery must be performed as soon as possible. She becomes depressed and contemplates suicide.
Episode 12
A young woman is wheeled in, victim of a holiday road accident. Doctors pour over her, determining extent of injuries. The tipsy driver responsible, her employer, callously wants to get on with his life. Entry serves as holiday warning.
Episode 13
An elderly widow, who lives with her son and his family, feels unwanted. As a result, she instigates arguments in the household. Eventually her gloom leads her to drastic action.
Episode 14
Following the death of his aunt/guardian, a 17-year-old epileptic is methodically treated with medication and extensive counseling in order that he may be able to live a comparatively normal life with a caring foster family.
Episode 15
Obsessively self-reliant Dr. Robert Parker faces an uncertain future and an extended period of reliance on an iron lung (and on other people) after he contracts a case of polio.
Episode 16
Eleven-year old Danny is a hemophiliac, even a slight injury can cause death. He's cut his arm and the doctors must halt the bleeding. Now his older sister worries that she too may be subject to the genetic disease.
Episode 17
This "what-if" episode imagines what would happen in the event of a nuclear strike on Los Angeles. Dr. Styner and his colleagues are at a warehouse outside the city for a training session, but must try to make their way back to the devastated city after the nuclear attack. Along the way they try to treat and save as many injured and radiation-poisoned patients as they can with what little medicine they have and are forced by circumstances to decide which patients can be saved--and which ones they'll have to let die.
Episode 18
An aging actor has been a paraplegic for five years. Confined to bed, he turns to the bottle, maundering over his situation. That is, until a public health nurse arrives. Now he feels sensations in his legs. Is it just wishful thinking.
Episode 19
In 1884, pioneering surgeon Dr. William Stewart Halstead finds that he and three colleagues are slowly but surely becoming seriously addicted to the cocaine that they have been using in anesthetic self-experiments.
Episode 20
A quiet, sedate, middle-aged bank cashier suddenly begins to exhibit strange and disturbing behavior. After a thorough examination, a medical team decides that his problem can best be treated by electroshock therapy.
Episode 21
A young wife and mother is suddenly stricken with a brain aneurysm. Now the couple must decide between short-term treatment hoping for no recurrence, or risk delicate brain surgery to remedy the problem.
Episode 22
An abandoned baby grows up in a hospital ward when an extensive series of surgical procedures is necessary to repair the damage caused when the infant's mother forced her to ingest caustic household lye.
Episode 23
Shortly before completing his residency and beginning his own practice, a resident internist is stunned when a routine chest X-Ray reveals that he has contracted an active case of tuberculosis.
Episode 24
After suffering a severe head injury, a newspaper editor struggles through a lengthy rehabilitative process .
Episode 25
Two mothers leave their children, a little girl and a baby boy, alone downstairs. The girl discovers a lighter and starts a blaze that engulfs them both. At the hospital, one mother holds the other responsible for what happened.
Episode 26
An injured sailor is helicoptered onto a naval hospital ship for treatment. There the head doctor suddenly starts treating his staff angrily. It appears he has a personal stake in the sailor's survival.
Episode 27
The blow to a child's head causes not only brain damage, but a dysfunctional family, as the members try to cope with the girl's problems.
Episode 28
Dr. Canfield is a family physician with a troubled marriage trying to balance the needs and demands of his patients with those of his family .
