MovieChat Forums > The Shootist (1976) Discussion > The Diagnosis

The Diagnosis

posted 9 years ago by joannabaroncelli
3 replies | jump to latest

I wonder if it was realistic that the doctor was able to make a cancer diagnosis after just one examination of Books. Would that be possible in 1901?
From the symptoms which Books described was the doctor able to know the right location to obtain a biopsy to examine under a microscope. I know X-rays had just started being used a few years earlier, could that have helped pinpoint the location to look for? Based on that could a precise prognosis of 2 months be given? I guess the point of this scene was to confirm to Books what he was facing so he could move on to dealing with it but I wonder if medicine was far enough advanced at that time to so quickly make such a determination.

[–] lindalucc 9 years ago

I thought the same thing about the doctor being able to diagnose him so quickly in 1901

[–] movies789 9 years ago

A definitive, accurate diagnosis - probably not. Then again, the doctor might have pulled together a few additional symptoms and details off-camera that allowed him to make a reasonable best-guess for the times and locale. Of course, as we all know now, certain symptoms that one might assume to be one disease might actually indicate any of numerous other possibilities. Books might have had something relatively benign or treatable; or, of course, he might, indeed, have had prostate cancer. Either way, with the pain he'd been suffering, I guess he was happy enough to go out the way he did, regardless.

[–] joegerardi (384) 7 years ago

Remember, he had J.B. drop the trapdoor. he did a digital exam, probably felt the tumor and its size, and with other questions, got to the diagnosis.

We don't know how long he was in the office- could have been 2 hours, and we saw the Doc referencing medical books.

..Joe