Doctor John Gorrie

Originally Aired: June 15, 1938 Cavalcade of America #139, "Doctor John Gorrie," tells the inspiring story of the physician who invented the first practical ice-making machine. In 1838 Apalachicola, Florida, Dr. John Gorrie battles a devastating tropical fever epidemic that threatens his entire community. When his beloved wife Carolyn falls desperately ill, Gorrie finds himself powerless without adequate ice to cool her fever. Throughout the crisis, he watches helplessly as patients suffer and a desperate Mrs. Summers loses precious ice stolen from her sick daughter Mitty's bedside. The town depends entirely on unreliable shipments of ice from the north, and Gorrie realizes that lives hang in the balance of each delayed boat. Driven by the near-loss of his wife and the suffering he witnesses daily, Dr. Gorrie becomes determined to free his community from dependence on nature's ice supply. Between his medical practice, duties as postmaster and city council member, and directorship of the Pensacola Bank, he works tirelessly on developing a refrigerating machine. His devoted nurse Miss Williams watches as the obsessed doctor experiments with compressing and expanding air to freeze water, convinced that his invention could save countless lives from the fever that continues to plague Florida.