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00:00It's 2 a.m. late February. A woman has been killed.
00:05Now the murderer must deal with her body.
00:08He knows someone who will take the corpse off his hands.
00:12A buyer who will pay a high price for it.
00:16The body is brought to a theatre.
00:20And the dissection class begins.
00:24The year...
00:28...is 1795.
00:33This is St. Bartholomew's, Britain's oldest hospital.
00:39This hospital has cared for people through the reign of Henry VIII,
00:43through the plague, the Great Fire of London, the Covid pandemic and beyond.
00:49Over nine centuries of scientific discoveries are here at my fingertips.
00:54There's something extremely special in this box.
00:59Now for the first time...
01:01Oh wow, okay.
01:02...I'll reveal how the breakthroughs of the past...
01:05You've got to see this with your own eyes.
01:08...are helping to write the future of medicine.
01:10I am absolutely blown away by this.
01:14I'll step inside the day-to-day of this state-of-the-art institution...
01:19That is incredible.
01:20...where they've been saving lives and making history...
01:24Oh wow!
01:25...for nearly a thousand years.
01:27And behind every door is a new secret just waiting to be discovered.
01:47When Bartholomew was founded over 900 years ago, back in the Middle Ages...
01:52...patients could expect a warm bed, good food, maybe some prayers.
01:57That was about it.
01:58There were none of the complex medical treatments available today.
02:02This is a state-of-the-art medical centre...
02:04...providing specialist care to patients from all over the UK.
02:12In the central atrium, Bartholomew's latest patients...
02:16...await their 21st-century treatments.
02:20Including Maxine Cooper, a supermarket delivery driver...
02:24...itching to get back to her favourite hobbies.
02:27I love to do a lot of sailing.
02:29And I play a lot of snooker.
02:31I'm very committed to doing a lot of snooker.
02:35But recently, even snooker has got too much for Maxine.
02:40The reason why I'm actually here is to have open-heart surgery...
02:44...because I have a heart valve that's going to be replaced...
02:49...as my valve is really diseased...
02:51...and I've had two little mini heart attacks.
02:55So the problem is, if I don't have it now...
03:00...the future is not looking good.
03:05Maxine is booked into theatre first thing tomorrow morning.
03:09With surgeon Neil Roberts.
03:11He's a veteran of over 1,500 open-heart operations...
03:15...and knows the human heart like the back of his hand.
03:19I guess it must be like pilots don't worry about flying a plane.
03:23It's what they do.
03:24And surgeons, through years of training...
03:26...once we get into the operating room, that's our zone.
03:31Every operation depends on the surgeon's training...
03:35...in one fundamental discipline...
03:37...anatomy.
03:38This is also my particular expertise.
03:41I've taught anatomy to medical students for over 25 years...
03:45...and that's often involved dissection of cadavers.
03:48That depends on people generously bequeathing their bodies to medical schools.
03:53I think it's still one of the best ways to learn anatomy...
03:56...and it has a long history.
04:00So, this is a very modern-looking lecture theatre.
04:05But, actually, there's been teaching going on on this spot for centuries.
04:12And I'm very close to where the dissection room was...
04:16...and the anatomy theatres.
04:18There would be a table with a cadaver on it, a corpse...
04:22...and someone like me, an anatomist...
04:26...would be dissecting this cadaver...
04:29...and showing the internal workings of the human body to these medical students.
04:35And this is essential information for them to learn.
04:39Anatomy is a foundational subject for medicine and surgery...
04:43...and has been for centuries.
04:48The study of anatomy really took off in the 1700s...
04:51...the age of the Enlightenment and new scientific thinking.
04:55A population boom led to the building of 57 new hospitals across Britain.
05:00All of them offered jobs to surgeons.
05:04For the young and ambitious, medicine and surgery...
05:07...was an increasingly attractive career...
05:09...and demand for anatomy training soared.
05:13But where there's demand, there must also be supply.
05:18Now I'm leaving the safety of Barts...
05:21...to uncover the dark history of anatomy.
05:28In the 1700s, there were more and more medical students and doctors...
05:34...who wanted to dissect bodies to learn anatomy.
05:38The trouble was, there just weren't enough bodies to go round.
05:42And a whole grisly industry got off the ground.
06:02To unearth exactly how the bodies for Barts were sourced,
06:06I've come to Tower Hamlet Cemetery in East London...
06:10...where I've arranged to meet an expert on body snatching.
06:14Alana Gilmour.
06:18Alana.
06:19Hi.
06:19Good evening.
06:21If we'd been walking around a graveyard in the late 1700s...
06:26...this was the kind of scene that we would have come across.
06:29It'd be quite usual.
06:30Yeah.
06:31Because the cover of darkness is ideal for digging up the bodies.
06:36They'll have been looking for a fresh grave.
06:39It's easier to dig if it's fresh, and the body is going to be fresher as well.
06:43And that's going to be much easier for them to sell to hospitals and anatomy schools.
06:48So had there been a time when executed criminals, for instance,
06:54when their bodies were given to doctors?
06:56Yes, but there's fewer executions happening, and more medical students.
07:02So the problem is that we're not executing enough people to keep up the supply of cadavers for the medical
07:08students.
07:09And the demand for bodies kept growing.
07:12In 1773, there were around 200 anatomy students in London.
07:17Just 50 years later, there were 1,000.
07:21A seller's market for the body snatchers.
07:26The people who are teaching the medical students using these bodies,
07:28were they not worried that they were going to be involved in that crime?
07:32So it's less of a crime than you might think.
07:34There's a big difference between grave robbing and body snatching,
07:37which is why we get the term body snatching.
07:39What's the difference?
07:40So if you're grave robbing, you're taking the goods or the jewellery or the clothing from the grave,
07:45and those are possessions.
07:46Okay.
07:47That's theft.
07:47But the body, your body belongs to you when you're alive,
07:51and when you're dead, it doesn't belong to anyone.
07:54It's seen as, legally speaking, a victimless crime.
08:01Coming up...
08:02Knife, please. Thanks.
08:03We'll follow Maxine's life-saving, heart-stopping surgery.
08:08You can get a heart-muscle tear in this kind of operation.
08:11It can be fatal if that happens.
08:13And I'll discover how medieval anaesthetic
08:16combines the clinically pointless...
08:18And that is lettuce juice.
08:20..with the frankly murderous.
08:23What's important about this is to understand how lethal it was.
08:42It's 8am at Barts, and Britain's oldest hospital is springing into life,
08:48as it has done every morning for the past 900 years.
08:53In the heart centre, supermarket delivery driver Maxine is being checked in for the first operation of the day.
09:00Is this your signature?
09:02Is this your signature?
09:02Correct.
09:03Signed yesterday.
09:03Yes.
09:04Yeah, happy?
09:04Yeah, very happy.
09:05And do you have any allergies?
09:07Maxine is one of the 4.4 million of us who will have surgery on the NHS this year.
09:12And we're all reliant on one specialist to make the experience as painless as possible.
09:19Our anaesthetists.
09:22Maxine's is Dr. Giampaolo Martinelli.
09:25I'm drawing the drugs, and then we'll gently give some oxygen and put her to sleep.
09:32Giampaolo will administer up to 15 different drugs across the two-and-a-half-hour operation.
09:38Can I have a second of morphine?
09:41Second one, please.
09:43The drugs will put Maxine into a controlled and reversible unconscious state.
09:49And as you can see, Maxine is already a little bit on a different planet.
09:56The idea of trying to make an operation pain-free is older than Barts itself.
10:04But it hasn't always been as safe or serene as it is today.
10:08Back in the medieval period, you could be prescribed a hefty blow to the head to knock you out.
10:14Or you could ask your local apothecrist to mix you up something special.
10:18By the Middle Ages, people had come up with all sorts of bizarre concoctions that were thought to have sedative
10:26and pain-killing properties.
10:28I'm on my way to find out the precise recipe for one of these.
10:33But I also want to know if it could have worked at all.
10:38Time for a potions lesson with medical historian Leslie Smith.
10:43She's dug out the ingredients to make a mixture called dwail, used as an anaesthetic from the 1100s right up
10:51to the 1600s.
10:52And it's truly alarming stuff.
10:56What's important about this is to understand how lethal it was.
11:00Before I hand you anything, I do want you to put rubber gloves on.
11:04So, Leslie, you've got a range of ingredients here that all go into this dwail.
11:08So, what have we got?
11:09We'll start off on the milder side, and that is lettuce juice, and that is soporific.
11:15I've never noticed that when eating lettuces, that they send you to sleep.
11:18And then over here, we've got izor, which is another way of saying vinegar.
11:23Neither of those is going to knock you out.
11:24I knew you wouldn't be impressed by those.
11:27So, here we've got henbane seeds, and you'll see there are skull and crossbones on a lot of these jars
11:31just to warn us about them being poisonous.
11:33Henbane is the witch's herb, and some of it was actually found in a Viking sorceress's grave of the 10th
11:41century.
11:42Oh, really?
11:42Yeah, so it goes right back.
11:44And then we've got hemlock.
11:46Everybody's sort of heard of hemlock, particularly related to sort of Shakespearean witches and what have you.
11:50And this is juice of.
11:52So, again, it's poisonous if you have enough of it.
11:55Yes.
11:56And then finally, we've got poppy.
11:58I mean, we still have drugs today that are related to opium poppies.
12:02We do.
12:04Poppy derivatives like morphine are standard issue pain relief today.
12:09The other ingredients in Dwayle range from the clinically pointless to the lethally poisonous, and plenty of booze.
12:16The results would put you to sleep, but you may not wake up afterwards.
12:22I'm actually quite surprised that we have got something that would have been effective.
12:27But also, it's extremely dangerous.
12:30Extremely dangerous.
12:31Look at us.
12:32Modern women with gloves on.
12:34No wonder.
12:35Yeah.
12:39Back in the 21st century, anesthetists are skilled at putting patients into reversible, but still deep, unconscious states.
12:48And Maxine is now ready for heart surgery.
12:52The operating theatre might appear to be an intimidating place, but for Maxine's surgeon, Neil Roberts, it's a sanctuary.
13:02I've got four children at home.
13:03No one listens to me at home.
13:05So, when I'm in the operating room, it's actually the more relaxed place for me to be, because people do
13:10listen to me.
13:10So, it's, you know, it's where I'm in charge.
13:16Are you okay to start?
13:18Neil is operating on a part of Maxine's heart called the mitral valve.
13:24This controls the flow of blood from the left atrium to the left ventricle, from where it's then pumped around
13:30the body.
13:31But Maxine's mitral valve is diseased and has become stiff and narrow.
13:36Neil must cut the valve out and replace it with a mechanical one.
13:40It's a delicate operation that can't be done while the heart is still beating.
13:45Nice, please.
13:47So, Neil first connects Maxine to a heart-lung machine.
13:52And clamped here.
13:56When introduced back in 1953, these machines revolutionised heart surgery.
14:02They replaced the function of the heart and lungs, allowing blood to be pumped and oxygenated outside the body.
14:10On bypass, please.
14:11Flashing, flashing, flashing.
14:13So, reds on the root.
14:15Are you happy with your bypass?
14:17Yeah, I'm happy, thank you.
14:18Fantastic.
14:19With her circulation taken care of, it's now time to stop Maxine's heart.
14:25This is done using a special cardioplegia solution.
14:30Trickle the plegia, please.
14:32The cardioplegia solution floods the heart with potassium, shutting down the electrical activity that makes the heart beat.
14:40Effectively pressing pause on Maxine's heart.
14:43Hand off, thank you.
14:47So, with heart stopped nicely, just retract on that for me.
14:52Scissors, please.
14:53With Maxine's heart stopped, Neil must now remove a valve barely larger than a 50p piece without damaging the rest
15:01of the heart.
15:03And this requires an excellent knowledge of anatomy, learned in the dissection room.
15:09Today, people very generously bequeath their bodies to medical schools, but this is a relatively recent phenomenon.
15:19In the 1800s, Neil's predecessors would have learned their anatomy using corpses from a body snatcher.
15:27And these canny businessmen made it convenient for their clients at Bart's.
15:33If you were to come into the Fortune of War pub just over the road from St. Bartholomew's in the
15:39early 1800s and go into one of the back rooms, you might see something like this.
15:46Because this is where the body snatchers brought their gruesome wares and laid them out for the surgeons to choose
15:55from.
15:58Now, look here, on the toe of the corpse, there's a label.
16:05This is the name of the resurrectionist, Joseph Naples, who brought this body in.
16:12And Joseph Naples was an absolutely prolific resurrectionist.
16:20Naples recorded selling up to 13 bodies a night, with each one netting him the equivalent of an average month's
16:28wage.
16:29With fortunes to be made, the scene was set for one of Bart's darkest chapters.
16:36By the early 1830s, the demand for corpses was so high that some of these body snatchers were starting to
16:46look for an alternative.
16:48Source of cadavers.
16:51And I've got here a confession of one of these men, these body snatchers, who go into another line of
17:01business.
17:01And it is quite a distressing read.
17:04It's about the murder of a child.
17:08The boy walked with Williams and me to my house in Nova Scotia Gardens.
17:14We took him into my house and gave him some warm beer, sweetened with sugar, with rum and laudanum in
17:20it.
17:21So they're drugging him.
17:23He drank two or three cups full and then fell asleep in a little chair belonging to one of my
17:30children.
17:30I mean, that detail just floors me.
17:35We laid him on the floor and went out for a little while and got something to drink, stealing their
17:41nerves.
17:42And then returned, carried the boy to the well and threw him into it.
17:47So that's the murder.
17:50He died instantly in the well.
17:52The body was carried into the wash house, put in a box and left there till the next evening.
17:57And we got a porter to carry it with us to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where I sold it to Mr.
18:03Smith for eight guineas.
18:11And it was these murders that led to a public outcry, murders in London, murders in Edinburgh.
18:20And it was clear the law had to catch up with the body snatchers.
18:27By 1832, there was such outrage that Parliament brought in the Anatomy Act, allowing surgeons to take unclaimed bodies from
18:36prisons and workhouses.
18:38This new source of cadavers for anatomy schools marked the beginning of the end for body snatching.
18:47Coming up...
18:49We absolutely have to get out of the room.
18:50..I discover how a mysterious vapour led to pain-free surgery.
18:55I am feeling like I can bounce around the room.
18:59And learn an ancient cleaning tip.
19:02The next thing that goes on is the wood ash.
19:05With seemingly magical results.
19:07This is how one woman can do the laundry for an entire hospital.
19:23There are over 1,200 NHS hospitals in the UK, but none quite like BARTs.
19:31Throughout nine centuries of care, it's always provided beds to those who needed them,
19:37allowing patients to recover and medics to monitor their charges overnight.
19:42That essential care would be impossible without the hidden heroes of every hospital in the laundry department.
19:53So this is where all the laundry comes in, Akash, into the basement?
19:57Yes, so all the clean linen comes through here.
20:00So sheets, pillowcases, blankets, PJ tops, bottoms, you name it, and it all comes here.
20:07Akash Kanani and his team ensure thousands of separate items are processed and replaced every day.
20:14Just thinking about the sheets, do you know how many sheets come into the hospital each day?
20:18You probably get about two, two, two and a half thousand sheets a day here.
20:22Two and a half thousand sheets a day?
20:24Yeah.
20:25Yeah.
20:25Oh, look out.
20:26Sorry. Go on, Amaran.
20:27Go for it.
20:28Today, Akash has a whole team working full-time on laundry.
20:34But the hospital hasn't always employed dedicated specialists.
20:39In the mid-1500s, when Henry VIII was breathing his last, there was no laundry department at Barts.
20:47Instead, washing was done by the 12 sisters on the wards, alongside fetching coal, emptying slops and countless other tasks.
20:56But eventually, the job proved too much for the sisters.
21:01And in the 1700s, the hospital drafted in outside help.
21:07But I'm curious to know how a Georgian laundry service worked, so I'm heading to the Barts archives.
21:18Okay, so St Bartholomew's Hospital Journal, 1748 to 1757.
21:26Agreement with washerwoman.
21:28Here it is.
21:29It says,
21:30Agreeed with Elizabeth Johnson, widow, to perform the buck or great wash of the patient's sheets.
21:36Buck, I don't know what that is.
21:38As usual, once every three weeks.
21:43Wow.
21:44The sheets are only being washed once every three weeks.
21:47She is to provide all labour and soap and fetch and deliver the sheets and linen from and to the
21:55wards.
21:55So it's a complete service she's providing.
21:58But with no washing machines or modern disurgence, what did the process actually involve?
22:04To find out, I'm heading to see social historian Ruth Goodman with a present.
22:12Ruth, I've got some dirty laundry for you.
22:14Oh, fab.
22:14Throw it on the top of the rest.
22:15From the hospital.
22:15From the hospital.
22:16Oh, fab.
22:16Throw it on the top of the rest.
22:17You are taking on the role of Elizabeth Johnson, who I've been reading about in the governor's records.
22:23And I think what's very interesting in that record is that it mentions that she has to use, know how
22:29to use a buck tub.
22:30To drive the buck.
22:33It's the sort of whole process that we're talking about here, which works particularly well in bulk.
22:40And there's no machinery.
22:41There's no machinery.
22:42And in fact, surprisingly little labour.
22:46This is how one woman can do the laundry for an entire hospital.
22:51So, we throw...
22:52I feel an experiment coming on.
22:53Yeah, exactly.
22:54And that's what this is.
22:55So, all the filthy sheets go in.
22:57Then you put on a filter cloth.
23:01We want it completely covering our laundry.
23:04Because the next thing that goes on is the wood ash.
23:07Yeah?
23:08So, you literally just ash it, which has been swept out of a fireplace.
23:11Absolutely.
23:12It doesn't work with coal ash.
23:13It has to be wood ash.
23:14OK.
23:15All right.
23:15And that just goes on top.
23:22And then another filter cloth over the top, just to contain and control it.
23:27Now we're going to add water.
23:28OK.
23:29And this is when the action starts.
23:32Action that requires gloves for reasons that will soon become clear.
23:36So, a little bit of hot just to start us off.
23:39Now, this might be historically accurate, but it's just a bit slow, isn't it?
23:42It is a bit slow.
23:44Good.
23:48What have you got hiding down there?
23:50You have, haven't you?
23:52You've got a hose.
23:5521st century water supply.
23:56I love it.
23:57The water dissolves natural chemicals in the wood ash, creating a caustic alkaline solution
24:03that after time can burn the skin, it also cuts through grease, just like a modern detergent.
24:10And it's not that strong at the moment.
24:13Put my fingers in, I can feel that that's slippery.
24:15Soapy slipperiness.
24:17Soapy slipperiness.
24:18Yeah.
24:19So then that goes back in the top, does it?
24:21And that, yeah, so that then goes back around.
24:25And so far, as you can see, we haven't actually hauled all that much water, and we haven't
24:29done any hard work, have we?
24:31But I don't think, even this caustic liquid, I don't think that's going to lift all the
24:35stains off that linen.
24:37It will, I mean, it's quite surprising.
24:39It really does dissolve pretty much everything.
24:42Okay.
24:42It breaks down blood, it breaks down pus, it breaks down urine, it breaks down faeces,
24:47pretty much everything you'd expect on hospital sheets.
24:51Bits of matter will still be there.
24:53Hmm.
24:54So the final part of the process is a rinsing and beating.
24:59So this is when it becomes more physical.
25:01That's the labour.
25:02But the combination of this makes it possible for one woman.
25:07To handle an enormous amount of laundry.
25:10The ingenious but low-tech washing of Elizabeth Johnson is a world away from today's cutting-edge
25:18hospital.
25:19Back in Bart's heart centre, cardiac surgeon Neil Roberts is in the middle of open-heart
25:25surgery.
25:26His team have deliberately stopped patient Maxine's heart, so that Neil can carefully remove the
25:34diseased heart valve.
25:35Okay, so that's the anterior leaflet of the mitral valve.
25:38That can go for histology.
25:42Maxine's faulty valve is about to be replaced with a mechanical one.
25:46And as it's the difference between life and death, it pays to check the packet before opening.
25:52Yeah, let me just see the word mitral.
25:54There we go.
25:55Perfect.
25:56Okay, yeah, you can open that.
25:57Right.
25:58First stitch then, please.
26:00The first operation to replace a diseased mitral valve took place in 1960, and it's now one
26:08of Bart's commonest heart ops.
26:10With Maxine's new valve in place, her heart can be restarted.
26:15So, fill the heart, blow on the lungs again, please, Catherine.
26:20The clamps are removed, and the blood returns, flushing out the heart-stopping cardioplegia solution.
26:28Okay, hard on red.
26:34Which should trigger the heart to beat again.
26:39And Maxine's heart gradually stutters back into life.
26:44The human heart, stopping and starting again, it's a bit like watching babies being born.
26:50It's amazing every time.
26:53With surgery complete, it's time for anesthetist Giampaolo to give Maxine's heart a helping hand,
27:01using his drugs to drive the recovery.
27:05I'm supporting the heart a little bit with the drug that will increase the contractility of the heart,
27:11but also a little bit of adrenaline just to give you a little bit of extra fuel.
27:17And he uses a special probe to check if Maxine's heart is taking to its new valve.
27:24That is the valve.
27:25The discs are opening and closing, opening and closing.
27:28So, the valve is worth functioning.
27:32Perfect.
27:33The wonder of modern anesthetics makes surgery a far less worrying experience than it once was.
27:41In the Middle Ages, potions like Dwayle had left patients in danger of never waking up again,
27:47and over time they fell from use.
27:50By the Georgian era, many patients simply had to scream and bear it.
27:55And long into the 19th century, surgery meant excruciating pain,
28:00and patients had to be physically restrained.
28:05I found a particularly graphic description of one operation at Bart's in the 1840s on a young girl.
28:15Oh, this is an article in The Lancet.
28:17There are parts of it that make for some hard reading.
28:20I can well remember, even now, one of the first operations I saw.
28:24The patient was tied to the operating table, as was customary in those days.
28:28But before many minutes of the operation had elapsed, her cries and entreaties to be untied were the most frightful
28:35that can be imagined.
28:36As the operation, which was necessarily a lengthy and slow one proceeded, her cries became more terrible.
28:43First one, then another student fainted.
28:45And ultimately, all but a determined few had left the theatre unable to stand the distressing scene.
28:53Then, in 1846, there was a breakthrough.
28:58In a public demonstration in Boston in the US, dentist William Morton asked his patient to inhale a substance called
29:07ether.
29:07He then removed a tooth from the patient without causing any obvious pain.
29:13It was the beginning of a new era.
29:18Now, to demonstrate ether's revolutionary power, I've sniffed out medical historian Leslie Smith again, along with some carnivorous plants.
29:29Oh, right. So, what are we doing here, Leslie? An experiment on ether?
29:34We are, and the actual experiment's going to take place with a Venus flytrap.
29:38The first thing we're going to do, if you'd like, to give it a bit of a poke and watch
29:41it react to the movement, as if it were a fly entering it.
29:46So, I'm going to go for this nice, wide-open, gaping part of the Venus flytrap.
29:52Look at that! It's worked!
29:53It closed its jaws.
29:55The question now is, how would a flytrap react after ether?
30:00We absolutely have to get out of the room.
30:02Yeah.
30:03It's a very dangerous fume.
30:04It can knock us out.
30:06A lab technician's going to come in and do the next stage.
30:10One of Leslie's Venus flytraps is left on ether-soaked cotton wool for three hours,
30:16before her willing assistant, Gareth, collects it along with an undrugged plant for comparison,
30:23and brings them both out into the open air.
30:26Here comes Gareth with the whole experiment now.
30:31Thank you, Gareth.
30:32So, this is our control.
30:33That's right.
30:34It's not being exposed to the ether.
30:36And if I stroke inside those jaws...
30:40There you are.
30:41Closing.
30:41It's closing.
30:42So, it's responding.
30:43And then this one's been sitting, breathing ether for how many hours?
30:47Three hours.
30:48It doesn't look well.
30:49Let's see if it's going to respond.
30:52There's no sign of response there.
30:54Look, I'm stroking and stroking it and nothing's happening.
30:57It looks a little sickly around the gills.
30:59I think we're going to have to see tomorrow whether it's starting to look a bit healthier
31:02and comes back to life again.
31:04It might.
31:04If we have killed it, this is a good demonstration of actually quite how dangerous ether was.
31:08Ether camp, yes.
31:09And there was a bit of guessing going on in the early days, you know,
31:12when they were practising with this in the 1840s.
31:16But in the end, it did give a painless operation.
31:18It did give painless surgical procedures.
31:22But we try not to kill people like that.
31:28Ether quickly found its way into British operating theatres and pharmacies,
31:33where one very naughty Bart's medical student named Michael Fennell
31:38couldn't help but take a sniff himself.
31:41Then this led to a second great discovery, at least according to Fennell.
31:48He says this happens early on in his training when he's 17,
31:52and he says numberless instruments were devised and manufactured
31:55for the safe or more effective administration of ether.
31:59And he was experimenting with them.
32:01So these would have been instruments like this,
32:03where you soak the gauze with the ether and then it's inhaled.
32:09So, I mean, this is basically him doing recreational drugs.
32:13But Fennell's supervisor wasn't keen on his ether habit.
32:17And then he says, at last, Mr Bell gets annoyed about this and says, stop it.
32:22He bans him from inhaling ether.
32:26It doesn't stop, Fennell.
32:28He decides to look for something else.
32:29And he says he came across a bottle labelled chloric ether,
32:33away in a dark storeroom.
32:35And he describes what it was like.
32:37It had a sweetish, agreeable taste.
32:40It soon also began to produce insensibility.
32:43It could, in other words, render somebody unconscious.
32:46And he talks to other surgeons about it and they start to use it.
32:51Chloric ether would become better known as chloroform
32:54and quickly became many surgeons anaesthetic of choice.
32:59He says, I must confess it isn't without some feeling of pleasure
33:02that I find my name connected with the discovery
33:05of one of the greatest boons ever conferred on suffering humanity.
33:10So he's quite pleased with himself.
33:12But Fennell's claims are hotly disputed,
33:16with most historians crediting a surgeon in Scotland called James Simpson instead.
33:22But whoever the pioneer was,
33:24this was another step towards modern anaesthesia.
33:32Now, some 180 years later, anaesthetics are so advanced,
33:37a patient can safely have their heart stopped and operated on without feeling a thing.
33:43So, seven hours after her surgery, how is Heart Patient Maxine doing?
33:50How I'm feeling is I am feeling like I can bounce around the room.
33:59I've been doing my walking, drinking water, doing my Pilates, and the nurses think it's great.
34:10The only thing is, I've got a bird's nest sitting on my head.
34:13I can't wait for my shower tomorrow to feel clean.
34:19And also, seeing the grandchildren, I've been giving them my orders and the little bell.
34:25So, ringing my little bell, put the kettle on, because that's all I like is my cup of tea.
34:31Coming up, I'll find out how Bart's ended up with a priceless art collection.
34:36It's really one of these gems hidden away in the hospital that we can hopefully bring back to life.
34:42And we'll meet the Bart's pioneer who realised radiation could be a medicine.
34:47Sometimes you want to damage tissue.
34:49For instance, if there's a cancer.
34:52Inspiring the cutting edge of cancer care today.
34:56It's quite miraculous.
35:08Down the centuries, Bart's has been at the forefront of medical innovation.
35:14Today, this historic hospital houses a state-of-the-art radiotherapy department,
35:19where radiation is used to kill patients' cancer cells.
35:23But though these machines are new, the use of radiation at Bart's is not.
35:29At the hospital's Victorian Pathology Museum, they have evidence stretching back over a century.
35:37Starting with the discovery that one form of radiation would allow medics to see inside patients.
35:44X-rays were discovered at the end of the 19th century, but then it was recognised that X-rays could
35:52damage tissue.
35:53Now, that could be very dangerous for people working closely with them.
35:57But sometimes you want to damage tissue.
35:59For instance, if there's a cancer.
36:01And there was one pioneering doctor at Bart's who was very, very early in this sort of therapy.
36:08His name was Geoffrey Keynes.
36:11Keynes wanted to take the radioactive metal radium discovered by Marie Curie and use the radiation it emitted to directly
36:20attack cancer cells.
36:22His idea was that you might be able to avoid surgery if you were to do this successfully.
36:27But it does look pretty brutal, I must say.
36:31And we can see some evidence of that here.
36:34An X-ray of a woman's chest.
36:36You can see the ribs coming round here.
36:38And then all these very thick needles which have been pushed into the breast tissue.
36:44These needles contained radioactive radium.
36:47So the idea is that they would sit in place for a week and that the radiation would then kill
36:55the cancer cells in that breast tissue.
36:58And the innovation at Bart's continued.
37:02In 1936, they installed Britain's first megavoltage radiotherapy machine, designed to attack cancer by firing X-rays rather than inserting
37:13radium into the body.
37:14Over the decades, radiotherapy machines grew ever more sophisticated and widely used.
37:20And in the last 10 years, over a million British people have received radiotherapy.
37:27At Bart's, the latest is 60-year-old insurance worker Erica Gilvargas.
37:33It's six weeks since she found out she had lung cancer and that the cancer had spread to her brain.
37:40I have hardly any words to describe how you feel when you're told something like that.
37:47It makes you look at things and life very differently.
37:54So, yes, very traumatic.
38:01Erica has been prescribed chemotherapy for her lung cancer, whilst radiotherapy will be used on her brain.
38:10Just come this way. This is the treatment room.
38:14Radiographer Mia Barker is using stereotactic radiotherapy.
38:19It's a highly precise form, perfect for targeting three tiny tumours embedded in Erica's brain.
38:27But it does mean she has to keep her head perfectly still.
38:31So I'm just going to place the mask over. It might feel slightly tighter.
38:35This bespoke thermoplastic mask has been created to exactly follow the contours of her face
38:40and keep her whole head stationary.
38:44That's as tight as it's going to get now.
38:49A 50 centimetre thick, lead-lined door ensures any scattered radiation remains in the room.
38:57And the treatment can begin.
39:01That's essentially the radiation as it's being delivered.
39:04So each sort of click is a little bit of the radiation going along at a time.
39:08She doesn't hear this in the room at all.
39:11The tumours are attacked from multiple angles with very high doses of radiation.
39:17Precision targeted to kill cancer cells without harming the surrounding brain tissue.
39:22The whole process takes around 20 minutes.
39:25OK, so we're all finished now.
39:28We can go in the room.
39:30OK.
39:31You feeling OK?
39:32Yeah.
39:33Well done.
39:34That's the first of five treatment sessions over for Erica.
39:39Yeah.
39:39Good.
39:40Yeah.
39:41Yeah.
39:42It's amazing how you can sit there at this treatment
39:46and know that it's blasting parts of your brain and you don't feel anything, you know.
39:54It's quite miraculous.
39:59Whilst Mia prepares for her next patient,
40:02throughout the hospital all sorts of experts are delivering specialist treatments.
40:06And not solely to patients.
40:12Across the site from Bart's Cancer Centre lies the hospital's historic North Wing.
40:18Designed in 1730 as Bart's Grand HQ,
40:22by the 21st century, this Georgian masterpiece was in urgent need of repair.
40:27So over the past 18 months, a team of expert craftspeople
40:33have been carrying out a painstaking restoration funded by charitable donations.
40:39Sophie Stewart and Stephen Payne are responsible for conserving the most eye-catching part,
40:45the stunning interiors.
40:52So we're now in the magnificent Great Hall of the North Wing of Bart's Hospital.
40:58It really is the most incredible space,
41:00complemented by the plasterwork ceiling and the very significant paintings as well.
41:07Sophie and Stephen have spent their professional lives conserving spectacular spaces,
41:13from the underside of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral
41:18to the stunning painted hall at the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich.
41:23But today they're focusing on the precious art collection
41:26that will grace the walls of Bart's North Wing.
41:29Good. Make some nice repairs on the frame.
41:33That's magnificent.
41:34Yeah.
41:34Just checking in with the team this morning,
41:36they've now completed five paintings.
41:38So we have about 13 or 14 slightly smaller ones to complete.
41:42The painting now being conserved shows a pioneering Bart's medic,
41:47whose influence is still felt to this day.
41:50It's a rather beautiful portrait of a famous surgeon, John Abernethy,
41:57who, amongst many of his achievements, also invented the digestive biscuit.
42:02Abernethy's digestives predate the McVitie's version by over 60 years.
42:07But this portrait isn't just a value to biscuit fans.
42:12Its artist, Thomas Lawrence,
42:14was Britain's leading portraitist of the early 1800s,
42:18painting everyone from the Duke of Wellington to King George IV.
42:23And today his works can sell for over ÂŁ9 million.
42:27It's really one of these gems that are hidden away in the hospital
42:30that, through our work, we can hopefully bring back to life
42:34through our conservation work.
42:36Once the paintings and the building are fully restored,
42:40they'll be back on view for the public to enjoy.
42:43But the real business of this place remains the patients.
42:48And back at the Cancer Centre,
42:51Erica has returned for a final session of radiotherapy.
42:57Today is her last one out of five, which is a standard prescription.
43:02Pop your chin down.
43:04She's said to me she's feeling quite tired now,
43:07but otherwise she's doing really, really well.
43:09Spreading the radiotherapy over five separate sessions
43:13means her doctors can safely maximise the radiation
43:16delivered to the tumours in her brain.
43:20That's the treatment all finished now,
43:22so she's completed the whole five treatments.
43:26OK, Erica, that's all finished.
43:28Well done.
43:31In three months' time, Erica and her doctors will know
43:35if this treatment has been a success.
43:37When you're first told, it just blows your world apart
43:42and your whole life becomes hospitals, appointments, your condition.
43:49You kind of, like, where's Erica?
43:53I'm not Erica, it's... I'm Erica with cancer.
43:56So it kind of feels different.
44:00But then as time goes on and you come to places like this
44:04and you see so many other people in the same situation,
44:08but then the staff here are just incredible.
44:12To the patients and non-patients, you're brilliant.
44:15Yeah, yeah.
44:15They're so kind.
44:16It warms your heart.
44:18It does.
44:22Next time, to treat his cancer,
44:25one Bart's patient must become radioactive.
44:27We have two meta-doses to protect us from you.
44:31I discover how hospital food tasted 300 years ago.
44:35It looks and smells utterly disgusting.
44:37And I reveal how experiments with electricity
44:40led to life-saving treatments today.
44:43It's able to deliver a shock
44:44to hopefully even put the heart back into a normal heart rhythm.
44:48And our hospital through time continues next Wednesday at eight.
44:53Alexander Armstrong's facing a fear
44:55that's plagued him for a lifetime
44:57as his epic journey across India
44:59concludes brand new tomorrow at eight.
45:01And a case that's seemingly running cold
45:03is about to take a shock and turn next on five
45:06as brand new drama Ellis concludes next.
45:09Next time.
45:10Next time.
45:10Next time.
45:10Next time.
45:11Next time.
45:13Next time.
45:13Next time.
45:13Next time.
45:13Next time.
45:14Next time.