"Epidemic" is the third episode of season 1 of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
Olive Davis, sister of storekeeper Loren Bray, returns to Colorado Springs with her cowhands from a cattle drive in Old Mexico bringing "the grippe" (influenza) with them. Dr. Mike works tirelessly to control the resulting epidemic and save the town's inhabitants, although many are hostile to her modern methods. The epidemic isolates the town after the stagecoach stops bringing food, supplies, and medicine. Dr. Mike uses Charlotte's former boarding house as a clinic to care for the stricken, and Colleen decides she want to become a doctor after watching her. Myra, a prostitute at the local saloon/brothel run by Hank Lawson, volunteers to help at the makeshift clinic and meets Horace Bing, the town telegraph operator who is one of the patients. Dr. Mike eventually runs out of quinine to treat all of the flu victims and falls ill herself. Sully enlists the aid of Cheyenne medicine man Cloud Dancing to help save her. After her fever breaks, Sully gently kisses Dr. Mike on the forehead when they are alone as she lays sleeping in the clinic.
This episode provides examples of:
- Armor-Piercing Response: When Michaela confronts Olive for spoiling the children and undermining her authority over them, Olive angrily says that by all rights, she should be their adoptive mother, not Michaela. Michaela immediately retorts that it wasn't Olive that the children's mother called for on her deathbed, and Olive remains silent.
- One-Word Title: "Epidemic", of course.
- The Plague: The influenza epidemic, which isolates the town after the stagecoach stops bringing food, supplies, and medicine.
