science

The Secret of Dr. Kildare

The Secret of Dr. Kildare is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Secret of Dr. Kildare rather than just read about it. In short: The Secret of Dr. Kildare is a 1939 American film directed by Harold S.

Key takeaways

The Secret of Dr. Kildare belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Secret of Dr. Kildare to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Secret of Dr. Kildare from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Secret of Dr. Kildare is a 1939 American film directed by Harold S. Bucquet and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This was the fourth of a total of ten Dr. Kildare pictures, Lew Ayres starred all but the first.

Plot Dr. Leonard Gillespie, racing against time in his battle with melanoma, is about to start an important research project at Blair General Hospital to improve the use a sulfa drug, sulfapyridine, as a cure for pneumonia with the help of his assistant, Dr. James Kildare. Paul Messenger, a Wall Street tycoon, asks for Gillespie's help in diagnosing the drastic, sudden personality changes that occur in his daughter Nancy. Gillespie assigns Kildare to pose as an old friend of the family in order to observe Nancy. At the same time, Gillespie borrows an airplane to fly Kildare around the country collecting blood samples for Gillespie to examine around the clock. When Gillespie collapses from exhaustion, Kildare forces the cranky old doctor to take a rest as a patient and persuades Blair head of hospital Dr. Carew to assign him to work full-time on the Messenger case. Kildare's move forces Gillespie to put the project on hold and, while the old doctor goes fishing on a much needed vacation, Kildare, still hiding his identity as a doctor, begins to investigate the causes of Nancy's symptoms. He learns that Nancy's symptoms began to appear when she feared she had lost the love of her fiancé. While talking with Nora, the family housekeeper, Kildare learns that Nancy suffers blinding headaches. Nora, who disdains all doctors because of their inability to help Nancy's mother, has convinced Nancy that she is suffering from the same type of brain tumor that killed her mother. Nora takes Nancy to see a nature healer named John Xerxes Archley, which prompts Kildare to admit that he is a doctor and dispute Archley's diagnosis of a "brain tumor" but alienates him from the family. With the help of ambulance driver Joe Wayman and his trusty monkey wrench, Kildare gets access to Nancy, who now has hysterical blindness. Kildare tries to consult with the vacationing Gillespie over the girl's symptoms but is rebuffed. Gillespie returns to Blair ostensibly to give a lecture to the interns on treating psychosomatic symptoms. Following Gillespie's advice, Kildare pretends to operate on Nancy's eyes and arranges for the first person she sees afterwards to be her fiancé, thus curing her hysterical blindness. Meanwhile, Gillespie returns from his vacation revived and, realizing that Kildare quit the experiment only out of concern for his health, reconciles with his assistant. Together they embark again on their research into curing pneumonia.

Cast

Censorship The censors at the Hays Office requested changes to the script's discussions of pregnancy before they would approve it for production. One of the major issues they had with the script was that it explicitly included dialogue about the potential dangers of childbirth.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Secret of Dr. Kildare

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Secret of Dr. Kildare claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Secret of Dr. Kildare before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Secret of Dr. Kildare ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Secret of Dr. Kildare

In research: The Secret of Dr. Kildare appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Secret of Dr. Kildare in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Secret of Dr. Kildare is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1939 American films, 1939 English-language films, 1939 drama films, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Secret of Dr. Kildare outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Secret of Dr. Kildare in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Secret of Dr. Kildare means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Secret of Dr. Kildare out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Secret of Dr. Kildare in simple terms?

The Secret of Dr. Kildare is a 1939 American film directed by Harold S.

Why does The Secret of Dr. Kildare matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Secret of Dr. Kildare?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Secret of Dr. Kildare.