August 3, 2024 • 21 mins
Please enjoy Coffin Cure The a great episode of the legendaryX Minus One radio - A Classic Old Time radio Show - OTR
This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI
This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is Nightline. You're a tie line of the world,
and this is Walter o'keith. Tonight, visit the world strangely
different from ours. The world of the future, the world
of X minus one. Now Here is the future X
(00:29):
minus one, come down for blast off, X.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Minus five for three two X minus one Fire from
(01:08):
the far horizons of the unknown. Com tales of new
dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future,
adventures in which you'll live in a million, could be years,
on a thousand, maybe worlds. The National Broadcasting Company, in
cooperation with Galaxies Science Fiction Magazine, presents One Tonight Coffin
(01:44):
Cure by Alan Norse. But first hear this the scene
of America's first Thanksgiving celebrations, the top Big Ten football
game of the day. One of the most unusual excursions
on which a radio audience has ever been taken. These
are to few highlights of the weekend Monitor as planned
for you. To help set the mood for the coming
(02:05):
Thanksgiving holiday, Monitor takes you on a visit to the
banks of the James River at Berkeley Plantation, Virginia, the
scene of America's first Thanksgiving celebration. More than three hundred
years ago. For sports fans, Monitor takes you to Michigan
Stadium at ann Arbor for the big Michigan Ohio State
football games, and for everybody a most unusual listening experience.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
As Monitor takes.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
You behind the walls of Leavenworth Penitentiary. You'll learn of
this famous prisons operation from warden C. H. Looney, sit
down to lunch with its inmates. Learn from them how
confinement behind prison walls affects a man. Learn of their
opportunities for rehabilitation. There'll be celebrities, music, US and sports
all on Monitor all weekend long, beginning Friday night over
(02:49):
most of these NBC stations now X minus one. And
Tonight's story, The Coffin Cure. I saw the headlines on
(03:12):
the way downtown in the morning, common Cold cured, And
sure enough there was his picture. Chauncey Patrick Coffin. The
newspaper ran on deliriously. Coffin nails lid uncommon cold no more.
Coffin states co finder a cure, sniffles, snipe, single shot
(03:34):
to save sneezers.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
There was no doubt of it. I've always said that
the man who finds the cure of the common cold
would be the greatest hero in medical history.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
And if I could have gotten my hands.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
On doctor Chauncey Patrick Coffin at that moment, I would
have torn him limb from the limbs, almost did about
a half an hour later.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
It's the laboratory. Fell up, fill up.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
There's no sense in getting excited, idiocy blind.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
I'm screaming idiotsyy Coffin, You're out of your mind.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Can't you see what you've done? It was my iv
in the first place.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
And Jake and I've been pounding our heads on the
wall for eight solid months and you go sneak in
the publication a full year before we have any business.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Now, now, Philip, you now, how about that? Jake? Did
you see the morning papers? This seat not only steals our.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Work, he splashes at all over that countryside and reading No, CP,
you shouldn't have done that. For all, we've hardly had
an acceptable period of political trial.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Oh nonsense, Philop. You had the worst cold of your
life when you took the vaccine. Have you had any
sent now?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Of course? No, Jacob, how about you? Any sniffles?
Speaker 5 (04:41):
How about six hundred students from the university? Did I
misread the reports on them?
Speaker 6 (04:45):
No, ninety eight percent cured of active symptoms within twenty
four hours.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
But of course it's only been a month.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Oh, gentlemen, be reasonable, think positively.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Has work to be done, a great deal of work.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Press comfort in twenty mine drug houses to consult with. Gentlemen,
We won the greatest medical triumph of all time, that
conquering of the common cold. We'll go down in history.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
He was right on that point. At least we did
go down in history.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Of course. It was the biggest story of the year
in medical circles.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
It was called the coffin multi centric upper respiratory virus
inhibiting vaccine.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Newspapers got called it the coffin.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Sure, the men from the government bureaus came first, and
then seventeen pharmaceutical houses descended with production plans, cost estimates,
colorful grass. One laboratory prompts the vaccine in ten days,
another guaranteed it in a week. The first actually appeared
(05:55):
in three weeks and two days, to be soaked up
in two hours by US see sponge of cold. Weary humanity.
Express planes were despatched to Europe, Asia Africa with a
precious cargo a million needles pierced a million hides, and
with a huge, convulsive sneeze, mankind stepped forth into a
(06:17):
new era. There were abstainers, of course, there always are
one of them.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
For example, my wife, Ellie Dovety one.
Speaker 7 (06:26):
You can talk all you want to. I don't want
any cold shots.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
You've had this cold for two solid months now. There
just isn't any cents to it.
Speaker 7 (06:35):
I don't want any cold chots.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
But why not just one little needles? You're hardly feeling.
Speaker 7 (06:41):
You know I don't like needles.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Why don't you leave me alone? Go take your.
Speaker 8 (06:47):
Dasty old needles and stick to the people that want them.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
I woke up once there night and listened to a
parade of sneezes from Elie.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I rolled over and frowned to myself. It wasnominious in
a way.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
The wife of one of the cold cure discoverers was
refusing the fruit of all those months of war.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
When I woke up in the morning, I thought I
was suffocating. Hey Ellie, Ellie Eler, I'm choking, La. What
did you do? Hey?
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Hey?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
What's burning? Hey? La? Somebody's burning down the house. What
are you talking about? It's just at a host I
burn it. Well, it's awful. What's happened here? My baby's bread?
Speaker 7 (07:51):
But don't just smell course, now it's just baked the eggs.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
That all you mean? You don't smell anything strange? I
don't smell anything period with this cold.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Say did you put on fresh perfume this morning before breakfast?
Speaker 3 (08:11):
To be ridiculous? Or even drop?
Speaker 8 (08:13):
Not?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
What drop this? My dog be in my mind?
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Or I'm imagining things that I'm working too hard? Word man, allie,
give me my hat. I've gotta get down to the
laboratory quick.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
You're listening to the coffin Cure to Nice Attraction on
X minus one. Eleven million victims, adults and children alike
beg you to break the grip of the crippler arthritis.
Advances in medical science have made possible the cure of
many diseases, but further research is necessary to break this grip,
(09:06):
to find the cause and the cure for man's oldest,
most crippling disease. Let's give arthritics a chance, help relieve
their suffering. Now, help find the cure that will end
this terrible disease for all time. Your contributions will support
a double barreled attack on arthritis, a fight in which
more research and better treatment are brought to bear on
(09:29):
one of the great menaces to our nation's health. Please
join the campaign to destroy arthritis, to break the grip
of the cripplers. You can do your part. Please give
to your local arthritis fund. Ah back to X minus
(09:58):
one and a coffin cure.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
The drew worse all the way downtown.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
I fought down nausea as the smell of damp, ropping
earth rose from my front yard. The neighbor's dog dashed
out to meet me, exuding the great grandfather of all
dog oders. The crowded bus was a nightmare. I could
tell that the bus driver had salami for.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Supper the night before.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
My stomach began to roll and I barely made it
off the bus.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I met Jake Miles at the laboratory. Coffin, come in here,
he's in there. He's got the door locks. You got
it too, Yeah, coffin, I don't come too close. You
got it too? When did start for you? Right after
supper last night? I thought I was going to suffocate.
I got up and walked the streets all night. What
(10:51):
a string? I got it? Sometime this morning. But I
don't understand. Nobody else seemed to notice anything. You forget something.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
We were the first three to take the car and cure,
remember you and me and Jake two months ago.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
But what's happened?
Speaker 5 (11:03):
Those foul smells everywhere, every odor and this town has
suddenly turned foul magnified.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
You mean, I don't think the smells have changed any well,
but what is it?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Then?
Speaker 6 (11:14):
Our noses have changed? Obviously? Look at our experimental dogs.
They never had colds and they practically live by their noses.
Other animals all depended on their sense of smell for survival.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
They don't get colds either.
Speaker 6 (11:28):
The mouth eccentric virus hits primates only and it reaches
the fullest power in man alone.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
But I don't get it. Why should it smell this way?
I haven't had a coal and an age.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
Of course. Now that's just the point. Look, why do
we have any sense of smell at all? Because we
have tiny nerve endings in the mucous membranes of our
noses and throats.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
But we've always had the virus living there, cold and
no cold.
Speaker 6 (11:55):
It's always been there except now after the coffin cure
we got rich the virus. Remember, and now, for the
first time, those nerve endings in our noses are just
beginning to function.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
You mean you think it will get worse and worse
and still now we're all in this together, Philip, was
your idea in the first place.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
You said so yourself. You can't leave me. Now you can't,
You can't. You better answer your phone.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Hello, I'm busy and I can't see anyone, and I can't.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
What oh, what is it?
Speaker 5 (12:31):
As a line of students outside the building, they're waiting
to see me.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Oh, jake, phil He'll hang me. You've got to help me.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Send out of the phraser and get all the live
cold virus we can find, get us some inoculated monkeys
and a few dozen dollars.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
But you've got to help me. You've got to help.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Me, mad, stop sniveling. You're the big publicity man around here.
You're going to handle the screaming masses, whether you're like
it or not. We've got to find out how to
catch the common cold again.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Therefore you have that by trying it was a futile struggle.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
We sprayed our throats with enough pure culture of virulent
live cold virus to have condemned an ordinary man to
a cold for life. We didn't develop a sniffle. We
injected the virus hypodermically, intradermally, intramuscularly, intravenously.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
We drank it, we bathed in it, but we didn't
catch a cold.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
We wore wet clothes and sopping shoes to work, but
we never felt better in our lives.
Speaker 7 (13:46):
I think you should all be locked up taking a
cold shower and then going out in the snow.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
You don't understand, Ellie, We've got to catch a cold.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Ye suppose you don't. What's going to happen?
Speaker 4 (13:59):
We had three hundred students march on the laboratory today.
The smells were driving them crazy. They couldn't even bear
to be close to their best friends. Tomorrow we'll have
them back, and three hundred more. And what's going to
happen when fifteen million people find their noses suddenly turning
(14:19):
on them?
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Ellie, we just did too good a job. We just
can't catch cold. We just can't crack it.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
Those antibodies are just doing too good a job.
Speaker 7 (14:33):
Will Maybe you can find unclebodies to take care of them.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Oh no, Look don't make bad joke. I'm not making jokes.
Speaker 7 (14:42):
I don't care what you do. All I want is
a husband back who doesn't complain how everything smells, and.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Who doesn't stand around in.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
Cold showers at six o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
In the morning, Jake Coffin and I had a conference
in the lands.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Boys. I can't go out here anymore. I can't see
those students. I beg for time.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
I promised them everything but my upper plates.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
I can't face them again. I just can't. We only
have a few days left.
Speaker 6 (15:27):
There were fifteen million mantime virus shots given in the
past three months.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
At least we don't come up with something. We're garnem
You know what I think. I think we've been prize idiots.
We've gotten so rattled, we haven't used our heads. And
all the time it's been sitting there blinking at us.
What are you talking about? Ellie said it this morning.
Uncle body.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Oh he's cracked, he snapped.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
No, No, I'm dead serious. How many of those students
do you think you can corral to help us?
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Six hundred they're out there in the street right now,
of blood skiking mob.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Howling for a lynching.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
All right, I want them in here, and I want
some monkeys, monkeys with coals, the worst ones the better.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
So do you have any idea what you're doing? Not
in the lace, except.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
It's never been done before, but maybe it's time. We
tried following our noses for a while. The tidle wave
began to break two days later. Only a few people here,
a dozen there, but we could tell it was coming.
At the laboratory, the doors were kept barred, telephones disconnected.
(16:35):
Jake rigged up some small gas masks, but it didn't
do much good. But the work went on in spite
of the smells. And you have no idea what a
truckload of monkeys. It smells like magnified ten thousand times
we had coal written monkeys, sneezing, coughing, weeping, wheezing monkeys
by the dozen, culture.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Trays bulged with tubes.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Each day six one hundred angry students holding their noses,
paraded through the lab.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Arms exposed. At the end of the week.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Half the monkeys were cured of their cold and couldn't
get them back, and the other half had new coals
and couldn't get rid of them. That meant we were
on the right track. And then two days later Jake
came into the laboratory triumphantly.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Say, what's the idea of bringing that dog in here?
I've got six nosed plugs and they still don't do
any good.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
But look at that puppy. Look at it.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Watch him carefully.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
He's sneeze. He's got a cold. That's the first dog
in history. I've ever got a cold. And we wont
I was the first volunteer.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
We injected the new serum in my arm and sat
back and waited. We were still waiting three days later.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Well, it was a great idea that didn't work, that's all.
Where's coffin? He collapsed three days ago.
Speaker 6 (18:11):
He kept having anxiety dreams about hanging.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Now. I suppose we'd better just face it.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Nice knowing you, Jake, pity at the end this way, Well,
it was a great trial, man, great trial.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Ah.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Yes, we will be remembered by an infuriated world, holding at.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
The nose in vain. Nothing like going down in.
Speaker 9 (18:35):
A blaze of half half what's the matter and a
blazer ha ha ha, Phil say it again, what a
moment fill with.
Speaker 7 (18:49):
Won Now just keep your feet in this warm bath,
feel and drink plenty of hot lemon juice.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
You'll be all right. You see, it was your idea,
the ug cold bodies.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
We developed that antibody against the cold virus, and that
we had to develop an antibody and get the antibody.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Will I be able to make it fast enough?
Speaker 4 (19:22):
It is about test enough for the people to get
good and eager to catch cold against. There's only one
little hitch hit the stuff we Bathe does a real
good job, just a little too good. I bet it wrong,
but I think I've got this cold fatips and as
I can find it antibody or get the anti body
(19:45):
and get the answer body.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Two bread Colin again, and I'll have another word about
X minus one. In a moment, is your head buzzing
with a feverish, stuffed up feeling of a cold.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Here's how to get relief. Every second someone takes it
for Romo krineinm brand Cole tablet.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
You have just heard X minus one presented by the
National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Galaxy Science fiction magazine,
which this month features Galley Slave by Isaac Asimov. The
three laws of positronic robots made it impossible to kill
a human but there was a loophole murdering a man
after his death. Read it in Galaxy Magazine on your
(20:44):
news stand today. X minus one has brought you The
Coffin Cure, a story written by Alan Norse and adapted
for radio by Ernest Canoy. Featured in our cast were
Raymond Edward Johnson as Phil, Joseph Bell Coffin, Bobby Hayes
as Jacob, and Betty Kine as Elie. This is Bread
(21:05):
Collin speaking. This is Bred Collins speaking. X minus one
was directed by George Gutsas and is an NBC Radio
Network production.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
We pause now for station identification. Pause now for station identification.
This is Nightline. You're a tie line of the world,
and this is Walter o'keith. Tonight, visit the world strangely
different from ours. The world of the future, the world
of X minus one. Now Here is the future X
(00:29):
minus one, come down for blast off, X.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Minus five for three two X minus one Fire from
(01:08):
the far horizons of the unknown. Com tales of new
dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future,
adventures in which you'll live in a million, could be years,
on a thousand, maybe worlds. The National Broadcasting Company, in
cooperation with Galaxies Science Fiction Magazine, presents One Tonight Coffin
(01:44):
Cure by Alan Norse. But first hear this the scene
of America's first Thanksgiving celebrations, the top Big Ten football
game of the day. One of the most unusual excursions
on which a radio audience has ever been taken. These
are to few highlights of the weekend Monitor as planned
for you. To help set the mood for the coming
(02:05):
Thanksgiving holiday, Monitor takes you on a visit to the
banks of the James River at Berkeley Plantation, Virginia, the
scene of America's first Thanksgiving celebration. More than three hundred
years ago. For sports fans, Monitor takes you to Michigan
Stadium at ann Arbor for the big Michigan Ohio State
football games, and for everybody a most unusual listening experience.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
As Monitor takes.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
You behind the walls of Leavenworth Penitentiary. You'll learn of
this famous prisons operation from warden C. H. Looney, sit
down to lunch with its inmates. Learn from them how
confinement behind prison walls affects a man. Learn of their
opportunities for rehabilitation. There'll be celebrities, music, US and sports
all on Monitor all weekend long, beginning Friday night over
(02:49):
most of these NBC stations now X minus one. And
Tonight's story, The Coffin Cure. I saw the headlines on
(03:12):
the way downtown in the morning, common Cold cured, And
sure enough there was his picture. Chauncey Patrick Coffin. The
newspaper ran on deliriously. Coffin nails lid uncommon cold no more.
Coffin states co finder a cure, sniffles, snipe, single shot
(03:34):
to save sneezers.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
There was no doubt of it. I've always said that
the man who finds the cure of the common cold
would be the greatest hero in medical history.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
And if I could have gotten my hands.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
On doctor Chauncey Patrick Coffin at that moment, I would
have torn him limb from the limbs, almost did about
a half an hour later.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
It's the laboratory. Fell up, fill up.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
There's no sense in getting excited, idiocy blind.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
I'm screaming idiotsyy Coffin, You're out of your mind.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Can't you see what you've done? It was my iv
in the first place.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
And Jake and I've been pounding our heads on the
wall for eight solid months and you go sneak in
the publication a full year before we have any business.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Now, now, Philip, you now, how about that? Jake? Did
you see the morning papers? This seat not only steals our.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Work, he splashes at all over that countryside and reading No, CP,
you shouldn't have done that. For all, we've hardly had
an acceptable period of political trial.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Oh nonsense, Philop. You had the worst cold of your
life when you took the vaccine. Have you had any
sent now?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Of course? No, Jacob, how about you? Any sniffles?
Speaker 5 (04:41):
How about six hundred students from the university? Did I
misread the reports on them?
Speaker 6 (04:45):
No, ninety eight percent cured of active symptoms within twenty
four hours.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
But of course it's only been a month.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Oh, gentlemen, be reasonable, think positively.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Has work to be done, a great deal of work.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Press comfort in twenty mine drug houses to consult with. Gentlemen,
We won the greatest medical triumph of all time, that
conquering of the common cold. We'll go down in history.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
He was right on that point. At least we did
go down in history.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Of course. It was the biggest story of the year
in medical circles.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
It was called the coffin multi centric upper respiratory virus
inhibiting vaccine.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Newspapers got called it the coffin.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Sure, the men from the government bureaus came first, and
then seventeen pharmaceutical houses descended with production plans, cost estimates,
colorful grass. One laboratory prompts the vaccine in ten days,
another guaranteed it in a week. The first actually appeared
(05:55):
in three weeks and two days, to be soaked up
in two hours by US see sponge of cold. Weary humanity.
Express planes were despatched to Europe, Asia Africa with a
precious cargo a million needles pierced a million hides, and
with a huge, convulsive sneeze, mankind stepped forth into a
(06:17):
new era. There were abstainers, of course, there always are
one of them.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
For example, my wife, Ellie Dovety one.
Speaker 7 (06:26):
You can talk all you want to. I don't want
any cold shots.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
You've had this cold for two solid months now. There
just isn't any cents to it.
Speaker 7 (06:35):
I don't want any cold chots.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
But why not just one little needles? You're hardly feeling.
Speaker 7 (06:41):
You know I don't like needles.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Why don't you leave me alone? Go take your.
Speaker 8 (06:47):
Dasty old needles and stick to the people that want them.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
I woke up once there night and listened to a
parade of sneezes from Elie.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I rolled over and frowned to myself. It wasnominious in
a way.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
The wife of one of the cold cure discoverers was
refusing the fruit of all those months of war.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
When I woke up in the morning, I thought I
was suffocating. Hey Ellie, Ellie Eler, I'm choking, La. What
did you do? Hey?
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Hey?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
What's burning? Hey? La? Somebody's burning down the house. What
are you talking about? It's just at a host I
burn it. Well, it's awful. What's happened here? My baby's bread?
Speaker 7 (07:51):
But don't just smell course, now it's just baked the eggs.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
That all you mean? You don't smell anything strange? I
don't smell anything period with this cold.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Say did you put on fresh perfume this morning before breakfast?
Speaker 3 (08:11):
To be ridiculous? Or even drop?
Speaker 8 (08:13):
Not?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
What drop this? My dog be in my mind?
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Or I'm imagining things that I'm working too hard? Word man, allie,
give me my hat. I've gotta get down to the
laboratory quick.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
You're listening to the coffin Cure to Nice Attraction on
X minus one. Eleven million victims, adults and children alike
beg you to break the grip of the crippler arthritis.
Advances in medical science have made possible the cure of
many diseases, but further research is necessary to break this grip,
(09:06):
to find the cause and the cure for man's oldest,
most crippling disease. Let's give arthritics a chance, help relieve
their suffering. Now, help find the cure that will end
this terrible disease for all time. Your contributions will support
a double barreled attack on arthritis, a fight in which
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(09:29):
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to your local arthritis fund. Ah back to X minus
(09:58):
one and a coffin cure.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
The drew worse all the way downtown.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
I fought down nausea as the smell of damp, ropping
earth rose from my front yard. The neighbor's dog dashed
out to meet me, exuding the great grandfather of all
dog oders. The crowded bus was a nightmare. I could
tell that the bus driver had salami for.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Supper the night before.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
My stomach began to roll and I barely made it
off the bus.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I met Jake Miles at the laboratory. Coffin, come in here,
he's in there. He's got the door locks. You got
it too, Yeah, coffin, I don't come too close. You
got it too? When did start for you? Right after
supper last night? I thought I was going to suffocate.
I got up and walked the streets all night. What
(10:51):
a string? I got it? Sometime this morning. But I
don't understand. Nobody else seemed to notice anything. You forget something.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
We were the first three to take the car and cure,
remember you and me and Jake two months ago.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
But what's happened?
Speaker 5 (11:03):
Those foul smells everywhere, every odor and this town has
suddenly turned foul magnified.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
You mean, I don't think the smells have changed any well,
but what is it?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Then?
Speaker 6 (11:14):
Our noses have changed? Obviously? Look at our experimental dogs.
They never had colds and they practically live by their noses.
Other animals all depended on their sense of smell for survival.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
They don't get colds either.
Speaker 6 (11:28):
The mouth eccentric virus hits primates only and it reaches
the fullest power in man alone.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
But I don't get it. Why should it smell this way?
I haven't had a coal and an age.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
Of course. Now that's just the point. Look, why do
we have any sense of smell at all? Because we
have tiny nerve endings in the mucous membranes of our
noses and throats.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
But we've always had the virus living there, cold and
no cold.
Speaker 6 (11:55):
It's always been there except now after the coffin cure
we got rich the virus. Remember, and now, for the
first time, those nerve endings in our noses are just
beginning to function.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
You mean you think it will get worse and worse
and still now we're all in this together, Philip, was
your idea in the first place.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
You said so yourself. You can't leave me. Now you can't,
You can't. You better answer your phone.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Hello, I'm busy and I can't see anyone, and I can't.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
What oh, what is it?
Speaker 5 (12:31):
As a line of students outside the building, they're waiting
to see me.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Oh, jake, phil He'll hang me. You've got to help me.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Send out of the phraser and get all the live
cold virus we can find, get us some inoculated monkeys
and a few dozen dollars.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
But you've got to help me. You've got to help.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Me, mad, stop sniveling. You're the big publicity man around here.
You're going to handle the screaming masses, whether you're like
it or not. We've got to find out how to
catch the common cold again.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Therefore you have that by trying it was a futile struggle.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
We sprayed our throats with enough pure culture of virulent
live cold virus to have condemned an ordinary man to
a cold for life. We didn't develop a sniffle. We
injected the virus hypodermically, intradermally, intramuscularly, intravenously.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
We drank it, we bathed in it, but we didn't
catch a cold.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
We wore wet clothes and sopping shoes to work, but
we never felt better in our lives.
Speaker 7 (13:46):
I think you should all be locked up taking a
cold shower and then going out in the snow.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
You don't understand, Ellie, We've got to catch a cold.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Ye suppose you don't. What's going to happen?
Speaker 4 (13:59):
We had three hundred students march on the laboratory today.
The smells were driving them crazy. They couldn't even bear
to be close to their best friends. Tomorrow we'll have
them back, and three hundred more. And what's going to
happen when fifteen million people find their noses suddenly turning
(14:19):
on them?
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Ellie, we just did too good a job. We just
can't catch cold. We just can't crack it.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
Those antibodies are just doing too good a job.
Speaker 7 (14:33):
Will Maybe you can find unclebodies to take care of them.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Oh no, Look don't make bad joke. I'm not making jokes.
Speaker 7 (14:42):
I don't care what you do. All I want is
a husband back who doesn't complain how everything smells, and.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Who doesn't stand around in.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
Cold showers at six o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
In the morning, Jake Coffin and I had a conference
in the lands.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Boys. I can't go out here anymore. I can't see
those students. I beg for time.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
I promised them everything but my upper plates.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
I can't face them again. I just can't. We only
have a few days left.
Speaker 6 (15:27):
There were fifteen million mantime virus shots given in the
past three months.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
At least we don't come up with something. We're garnem
You know what I think. I think we've been prize idiots.
We've gotten so rattled, we haven't used our heads. And
all the time it's been sitting there blinking at us.
What are you talking about? Ellie said it this morning.
Uncle body.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Oh he's cracked, he snapped.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
No, No, I'm dead serious. How many of those students
do you think you can corral to help us?
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Six hundred they're out there in the street right now,
of blood skiking mob.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Howling for a lynching.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
All right, I want them in here, and I want
some monkeys, monkeys with coals, the worst ones the better.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
So do you have any idea what you're doing? Not
in the lace, except.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
It's never been done before, but maybe it's time. We
tried following our noses for a while. The tidle wave
began to break two days later. Only a few people here,
a dozen there, but we could tell it was coming.
At the laboratory, the doors were kept barred, telephones disconnected.
(16:35):
Jake rigged up some small gas masks, but it didn't
do much good. But the work went on in spite
of the smells. And you have no idea what a
truckload of monkeys. It smells like magnified ten thousand times
we had coal written monkeys, sneezing, coughing, weeping, wheezing monkeys
by the dozen, culture.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Trays bulged with tubes.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Each day six one hundred angry students holding their noses,
paraded through the lab.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Arms exposed. At the end of the week.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Half the monkeys were cured of their cold and couldn't
get them back, and the other half had new coals
and couldn't get rid of them. That meant we were
on the right track. And then two days later Jake
came into the laboratory triumphantly.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Say, what's the idea of bringing that dog in here?
I've got six nosed plugs and they still don't do
any good.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
But look at that puppy. Look at it.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Watch him carefully.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
He's sneeze. He's got a cold. That's the first dog
in history. I've ever got a cold. And we wont
I was the first volunteer.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
We injected the new serum in my arm and sat
back and waited. We were still waiting three days later.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Well, it was a great idea that didn't work, that's all.
Where's coffin? He collapsed three days ago.
Speaker 6 (18:11):
He kept having anxiety dreams about hanging.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Now. I suppose we'd better just face it.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Nice knowing you, Jake, pity at the end this way, Well,
it was a great trial, man, great trial.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Ah.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Yes, we will be remembered by an infuriated world, holding at.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
The nose in vain. Nothing like going down in.
Speaker 9 (18:35):
A blaze of half half what's the matter and a
blazer ha ha ha, Phil say it again, what a
moment fill with.
Speaker 7 (18:49):
Won Now just keep your feet in this warm bath,
feel and drink plenty of hot lemon juice.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
You'll be all right. You see, it was your idea,
the ug cold bodies.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
We developed that antibody against the cold virus, and that
we had to develop an antibody and get the antibody.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Will I be able to make it fast enough?
Speaker 4 (19:22):
It is about test enough for the people to get
good and eager to catch cold against. There's only one
little hitch hit the stuff we Bathe does a real
good job, just a little too good. I bet it wrong,
but I think I've got this cold fatips and as
I can find it antibody or get the anti body
(19:45):
and get the answer body.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Two bread Colin again, and I'll have another word about
X minus one. In a moment, is your head buzzing
with a feverish, stuffed up feeling of a cold.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Here's how to get relief. Every second someone takes it
for Romo krineinm brand Cole tablet.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
You have just heard X minus one presented by the
National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Galaxy Science fiction magazine,
which this month features Galley Slave by Isaac Asimov. The
three laws of positronic robots made it impossible to kill
a human but there was a loophole murdering a man
after his death. Read it in Galaxy Magazine on your
(20:44):
news stand today. X minus one has brought you The
Coffin Cure, a story written by Alan Norse and adapted
for radio by Ernest Canoy. Featured in our cast were
Raymond Edward Johnson as Phil, Joseph Bell Coffin, Bobby Hayes
as Jacob, and Betty Kine as Elie. This is Bread
(21:05):
Collin speaking. This is Bred Collins speaking. X minus one
was directed by George Gutsas and is an NBC Radio
Network production.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
We pause now for station identification. Pause now for station identification.
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