Corridors of Blood

Surgery in the days before anesthetics, when patients were strapped down with leather bands and suffered amputations while fully conscious, forms the background of this horrifying story. "Pain and the knife are inseparable," the doctors used to claim. A humane surgeon experiments on himself with a newly-discovered gas but becomes addicted to it and is forbidden to continue his practice. Denied access to the drugs he needs, his desperation leads him into a diabolical bargain with the body snatchers who provide hospitals with dead bodies for dissection. They promise him the drugs he needs in exchange for his signature on false dead certificates to conceal their crimes.