When Nobel laureate and Oscar-winning playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote “The Doctor’s Dilemma” which debuted in 1906, the germ theory of disease was relatively new. You have to keep this in mind when you see this funny production of “The Doctor’s Dilemma” at A Noise Within. Shaw was a literary genius, but he came out of the wrong side of history in this case.

According to the program notes (written by Sally Peters) Shaw was a hypochondriac who “longed for another mode of existence–bodiless, in a spotless ethereal world.”  He also didn’t believe in the relatively new germ theory. This might be hard to believe with today’s hypochondriacs being largely germ-fearing types.

In the 1870s, Joseph Lister applied the germ theory of disease to medical sanitation.  French scientist Louis Pasteur developed the concept and practice of pasteurization and began developing vaccines in the 1870s. The germ theory of disease had been supported by Robert Koch who devised a series of tests that he explains in the 1890 publication of “Koch’s Postulates.” Koch worked on anthrax and detailed four criteria to establish the causal relationship between a microbe and a disease.

For Shaw, Peters writes, germ theory was nothing more than superstition. Illness was the sign of a weak will and he felt ,”It is the mind that makes the body and not the body the mind.”

In his “Doctor’s Dilemma,” Shaw offers us doctors as fools. Sir Colenso Ridgeon has just developed a tuberculosis treatment, but can only treat ten patients.  A middled-aged bachelor with a preening ego, Colenso is confronted by the beautiful wife of a gifted artist, Jennifer Dubedat (Jules Willcox). Colenso’s friends are almost all equally self-important charlatans. Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington (Robertson Dean) also consistently advises to “stimulate the phagocytes.” Cutler Walpole (Freddy Douglas) believes all illnesses can be traced to some form of blood poisoning. This might sound crazy to us today, but actual death due to blood poisoning wasn’t uncommon. In the U.S. the most famous case was the death of President Calvin Coolidge’s son, Calvin Jr., from an infection started from a blister.

The question isn’t about whether art is worthy, or even, as we might later suspect, whether the husband has artistic talent. This is a given. Yet when we finally meet her husband, Louis (Jason Dechert), we learn he is a cad, playing a game with all the good fellows by asking each individually to loan him money, even the poor Dr. Blenkinsop (David LM McIntyre) who is left without enough money to get home.  Blenkinsop, the humble exception to Colenso’ collection of self-important colleagues, serves the poor and Colenso discovers he also has tuberculosis.

The question becomes: Do you save an artistic con artist (who is also a bigamist)? Or do you save your colleague who is guilty of too many good deeds at the cost of a financially stable practice. More troubling is Colenso has fallen in love with the young Jennifer. If her husband was dead, Colenso could then marry her.

The girl does get re-married, but things don’t turn out as Colenso might have wanted. There’s a bittersweet end to this comedy and not just because Colenso doesn’t get the girl, but also because Shaw missed out on a major medical advancement of his century. For us in today’s world, I guess that means that even geniuses can be intelligent design fans. Shaw’s failure to recognize the value of germ theory gives us Shaw as the con man, trying to convince us that men of science are fools with the dying artist too weak-willed to stop “borrowing” money and the humble doctor, so overboard with what is almost a martyr complex that he suffers the humiliation of not having enough money to get home. These two men aren’t reasonable from Shaw’s perspective.

Dámaso Rodriguez has this expert ensemble maintain a healthy clip, the pacing moves us too quickly for us to consider the ridiculousness of Shaw’s views on health. Instead, we concentrate on his send up of pompous professionals. Willcox is sadly convincing and her Jennifer is ultra noble as well as delusional in her support of her husband despite his many faults and deceptions. Dechert makes Louis Dubedat a charming cad,  a dangerous type because you wouldn’t mind having him around for his intelligent conversation and the admiration he sends your way. Don’t we all know someone like that? Constantly buttering you up in order to help your money slip through your hands. As Colenso Geoff Elliott finds his pompousness but also his pitiful attempt to find a respectable love in a less than respectable way.

What hasn’t changed since Shaw’s time, at least in America, is that the poor can’t always afford medical care and their healthcare and survival can be dependent on luck and being marketable to the right audiences. That’s not true in Great Britain which has a national healthcare system, which in the U.S. is still a matter of debate. “The Doctor’s Dilemma” is a tragic comedy with a timely message about healthcare and a cautionary tale about the blind spots of geniuses.

“The Doctor’s Dilemma” continues at A Noise Within in Pasadena until Nov. 25. For more information, call (626) 356-3100 or visit their website.