Wednesday February 4, 1976
2011
Caroline decides to stay home while Charles takes the girls on a trip, but this rare alone time is aggravated when a minor scratch on her leg flares into a major infection. Alone and with no immediate help available, a fiercely ill Caroline turns to the Bible for comfort-- only to stumble upon the words "And if thy leg offends thee, cut it off...." Caroline is close to death when Charles finally gets home to her, and in the wake of this terrifying event, the family realizes--more than ever--the invaluable role of this beloved wife and mother in their lives.
Read Full Recap » (warning: possible spoilers!)Plastic on Little house windows/Penicillin hide show
Right at the beginning when the opening title of the
episode is shown, you can see plastic sheets on the bedroom windows of their house. When all of the them go into the house, the parents bedroom window is closed due to the wooden shutters. I doubt that they had sheets of plastic in the late eighteen hundreds. You have to look quick to see the plastic
but you can see it moving because of the wind.
I suspect that maybe one of the glass windows was broken and this was a quick fix to protect the interior from damage. By the way Penicillin was Invented in 1928, by Sir Alexander Fleming so Caroline
was out of luck when it came to getting medication. It
was either your bodies immune system took care of
infection or you died a very painful death. If she
cut off her leg, she would have bleed to death. Either
way if she listened to the bible, she was dead and if she did nothing she would died in excruciating pain from the infection.
A small scratch becomes a raging infection that nearly kills Caroline--all while the rest of the family is out of town. hide show
I enjoy this episode for two reasons: it focuses on Caroline and allows her character to shine, and it cleverly incorporates religion into the story several times in one episode. Faith, after all, is supposed to be one of the central tenets of the LHOTP series. Caroline scratches herself on a wire just before the family is scheduled to take a brief out-of-town trip. Just before departure, Reverend Alden asks Caroline to make some pies for a church auction, resulting in her staying behind, alone. Her leg becomes infected, and shortly after leaving the pies out for the Reverend to pick up, she takes ill. She collapses while reading her bible, and comes to only when she hears the Reverend arrive to retrieve the pies. To weak to summon him for help, she collapses on the floor and eventually contemplates cutting off her leg. She succeeds only in opening the wound before fainting. When Charles arrives home, he of course summons Dr. Baker and Reverend Alden, who quips that "God alone must have told her to open that wound". A classic episode that I'm surprised is not rated higher here. Don't miss it when it airs!
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