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00:11AVAILABLE NOW
00:32This programme is a double journey,
00:35one back into history and the other across India,
00:38looking for the origins of that feeling you sometimes get,
00:41you know, of depression,
00:43when you want to grab a map and find somewhere exotic, like this,
00:47just to get away from it all.
00:49And the extraordinary thing is,
00:51because of the strange way history goes,
00:54the map and the depression will come together,
00:57here, in India.
01:12I suppose the best way to describe this particular holiday trip
01:16is as a criminal, heavenly, colourful, precise, transparent,
01:22medicinal, electrifying, but above all, sentimental journey.
01:34MUSIC PLAYS
01:40Here's where we start our journey.
01:43In Vienna, with Sigmund Freud.
01:47Because if you do happen to be feeling a bit low, he's the guy to blame.
01:52Because Vienna's where Sigmund Freud changed the way we think,
01:56about the way we think, about the way we think.
02:06Up across 19th century Vienna was one long party.
02:10You went from receptions, to banquets, to grand balls, to champagne at dawn,
02:15then got up next afternoon and did it again.
02:20MUSIC PLAYS
02:21In 1882, into this non-stop insanity comes Freud,
02:26who joins an upmarket society doctor,
02:28who's doing financially very nicely,
02:30with more cases than he can handle,
02:32of the single most frequent condition suffered by Vienna ladies,
02:35their lifestyle.
02:39MUSIC PLAYS
02:41Symptoms are tears, hysteria, sleepwalking, exhaustion,
02:44and being generally, well, off the wall.
02:48MUSIC PLAYS
02:52After a while, Freud leaves these problems for Paris
02:55to learn the latest techniques.
02:56Then he comes back, sets up on his own,
02:59and starts treating his patients with a totally new kind of therapy.
03:06At first, he gets his patients to lie down
03:08and talk about themselves and their dreams,
03:11while he applies a little light pressure to their heads.
03:15Then he drops the pressure thing and just lets them talk.
03:18It seems to work.
03:21Now, at the time, the new wonder cure is electricity.
03:26Touching a live wire is known to make you breathless
03:29and give you spots before the eyes.
03:31So, obviously, it's doing something.
03:34So, on the basis that something is better than nothing,
03:37which is what medicine at the time does for you,
03:40doctors get busy shocking their patients.
03:46One of the things Freud saw in Paris, for instance,
03:49is still used today.
03:52Electroconvulsive therapy.
03:54Back then, nobody knew how it worked,
03:56but that didn't seem to matter too much.
03:58But the real cutting edge in medicine
04:00involved something they thought was related to electricity,
04:04something they called animal magnetism.
04:09Look me right in the eyes, Leavshin.
04:13Right in the eyes.
04:15If you can really kill my head.
04:17Okay, here comes the animal magnetism bit now.
04:20Watch the eyes.
04:29In 1776, Mesmer qualifies as a doctor.
04:36Marries a wealthy widow,
04:37becomes very fashionable with the Viennese upper crust.
04:41Strokes his patients in darkened rooms,
04:44wearing flowing robes and a feathered hat,
04:47and has magnetic baths.
04:50Don't laugh.
04:51It might not have been the dawn of modern medicine,
04:55but it was better than bloodletting and enemas, right?
05:11Of course, Mesmer didn't just dream it all up.
05:14This, don't forget, is the Romantic period,
05:16when even hard-boiled scientists believe
05:19the Earth is a giant magnet,
05:21so there ought to be magnetic fluid around
05:23that would, well,
05:25seep into people from bushes and trees
05:27and generally, well, flow everywhere.
05:31Well, fluids do flow, don't they?
05:33And, of course, this magic fluid is also invisible.
05:36Well, it would have to be,
05:38given that you can't see it.
05:51These dancing Indian gods would really have turned on
05:54the next characters in our historical journey
05:56because they were a couple of doctors
05:57who believed that the invisible fluid
05:59ran round your body in tubes
06:01and worked all the different bits of you,
06:03no matter how many bits you had.
06:06These two guys, Gaul and Spurzheim,
06:09believed that the vital fluid had to originate in the brain.
06:12Where else?
06:13And since the brain was obviously controlling
06:15many different parts of it,
06:17it had to be able to do many different jobs.
06:19So maybe there were many different control centres
06:22up there in your head.
06:24This idea went over very big
06:26with some very big people,
06:28including, among others,
06:29the lady controlling this place at the time.
06:39Victorian England was like one of those Wild West film towns.
06:42It only looked good from the front.
06:46Behind all these posh facades,
06:48the place was on the edge of revolution.
06:50The rich were rolling in it
06:51and the poor were starving.
06:54Gaul and Spurzheim
06:55offered their amazing new social science of phrenology.
07:01The bumps on your head covered your control centres
07:04so they were a guide to your character,
07:06useful when it came to self-improvement for the poor.
07:10And then phrenology was to take a turn
07:12for the criminal.
07:18As the material wealth
07:20of industrial manufacturing society
07:23left more and more goodies lying around,
07:26more and more criminals
07:27started helping themselves.
07:29In 1839,
07:31this rising crime rate
07:32spurred the invention of the cops,
07:34who promptly caught the robbers
07:37and started putting them away for good
07:39in places that can best be described
07:42as shut them up
07:43and forget them hellholes.
07:51Until this.
07:53Pentonville Prison, London.
07:55One of the new-look reformatory prisons
07:57first started in England and the US.
07:59Called a panopticon.
08:02Because as you can see,
08:03you can see.
08:05Every prisoner's cell at a glance
08:06because of the layout.
08:08The cell blocks radiate out
08:10from a central control room.
08:12So now,
08:13with this new open plan stuff,
08:15you could bring some enlightenment
08:16to penology.
08:20You could call it penology for a start.
08:23So now,
08:24the phrenological social reformers
08:27could actually study the bumps
08:29on criminal heads.
08:30Close up,
08:31in large numbers.
08:35and under completely controlled conditions.
08:41Well, they are,
08:42aren't they?
08:49Now, by this time,
08:51Darwin was coming out
08:52with all his stuff
08:53about human beings
08:54being distantly descended
08:55from the apes.
08:56Well,
08:58according to one Italian phrenology freak
09:00called Lombroso,
09:01in the case of criminals,
09:03distantly was hardly the word.
09:06Lombroso was convinced
09:07criminals were a good deal
09:08closer to apes
09:09than law-abiding folk.
09:10So,
09:11he went around the prisons
09:12and measured 9,000 convict heads
09:14and announced
09:15you could identify villains
09:17because they looked like
09:18throwbacks to the apes.
09:19In fact,
09:20that's when the idea
09:20of throwbacks started.
09:22Criminals had great big ears.
09:25They also had very broad sinuses.
09:27Another crooked characteristic
09:29was heavy jaws.
09:31They had broad cheekbones
09:33and, above all,
09:34sloping foreheads.
09:36So,
09:36maybe you could finger a criminal
09:38before he committed the crime.
09:40And then into Lombroso's lab
09:42came a guy
09:43who was to knock phrenology
09:44right on the head.
09:47Because he decided
09:48to dig down under the bumps
09:50to see what was really there.
09:52His name was Golgi
09:53and I'm going to show you
09:55an amazing picture he took.
09:57Golgi left a slice of brain
09:59for several hours
10:00in a solution of silver nitrate
10:02because if there was anything there,
10:04the nitrate would stain it
10:05and then,
10:06just like photographs did,
10:08the stain would show up
10:09when you developed the picture.
10:11Here it comes
10:12now.
10:15Because
10:15what you're looking at
10:17is what Golgi found
10:18under the bumps
10:19inside the brain.
10:22Brain cells.
10:25Golgi's amazing pictures
10:27gave us
10:28neurophysiology
10:28as we know and love it today.
10:30So,
10:30if you're ever in
10:31for a brain op,
10:32thank Golgi.
10:35And just as my Indian journey
10:37has brought me
10:37to this colourful cloth market,
10:39the programme
10:40takes a turn
10:41for the blue
10:41because Golgi
10:43got his brain stain ideas
10:45from a German
10:45who changed the world
10:46with this colour
10:46and got himself
10:48in deep trouble
10:49with some rather
10:50orthodox types
10:50here
10:51in Moscow.
11:00His name was Paul Ehrlich
11:02and he was a colourful
11:04medical research type
11:05whose work ran him up
11:06against the Russian
11:07Orthodox Church.
11:08See,
11:09Golgi's basic idea
11:10of staining tissue
11:11had come from Ehrlich
11:13when he'd accidentally
11:14dropped some new
11:15synthetic blue dye
11:16on one of his tissue cultures
11:18and discovered it stained
11:19only the bacteria
11:20in the culture.
11:21over the next few years
11:23this amazing technique
11:24made it possible
11:25to identify
11:26virtually all the killer
11:27bacteria causing epidemics
11:29cholera,
11:30TB,
11:31gonorrhea.
11:37Ehrlich found that
11:38some of his dyes
11:39would actually kill
11:40specific bugs
11:41without harming
11:42the rest of the patient's body.
11:43We call the technique
11:44chemotherapy
11:45and the first of these
11:47new wonder drugs
11:48Ehrlich was to produce
11:49was called
11:50salivarsan.
11:51It cured syphilis.
11:52Sounds great to you
11:53and me.
11:54Caused an almighty
11:55row with the synod
11:56of the Russian
11:57Orthodox Church
11:58who reckoned that
11:59syphilis was heavenly
12:00punishment for doing
12:00what you weren't supposed to
12:02and as such
12:03shouldn't be cured
12:04by any medicine.
12:05Thank you very much.
12:06None of which
12:07cramped Ehrlich's style.
12:09Chemotherapy went on
12:10to become the answer
12:11to many a prayer.
12:21Now, the English
12:23had invented
12:23the first artificial dye
12:25but they'd done
12:26nothing about it
12:26because their idea
12:27of a good education
12:29was giving civil servants
12:30a background
12:31in Latin literature
12:32so they could run
12:34India and the rest
12:35of the empire.
12:36Not teaching them
12:37stuff like chemistry.
12:38That was strictly
12:39for the lower classes.
12:40Not really the kind
12:41of thing a gentleman did.
12:43The Germans
12:44weren't that stupid
12:45which is why Germany
12:46was so full of chemists.
12:48One of whom,
12:49a fellow called Caro,
12:51was to come up
12:51with the next synthetic dye
12:53the one Ehrlich would use
12:57and he was to do it
12:58in the lab
12:59of a chap
12:59who would make
13:00every school kid's
13:01chemistry lessons
13:02hell ever since
13:04here
13:04in Heidelberg.
13:12Back in 1855
13:14a guy called Bunsen
13:15came up with a hot
13:16new gizmo called
13:18the Bunsen burner.
13:24He'd been looking
13:25at ways to save fuel
13:26in iron foundries
13:27where a whole lot
13:28of unburnt coal gas
13:29was going up the chimneys
13:30and he found
13:31you could get
13:32a much hotter flame
13:33from the gas
13:34and because of that
13:35use the gas
13:36a lot more efficiently
13:36and because of that
13:38save a lot of money
13:38if you mixed air
13:40with the gas
13:41before you burned it.
13:43If you did that
13:44you also got a clear
13:46non-luminous flame
13:47that was free
13:48of impurities
13:52which meant
13:53that if you wanted
13:54to take a close look
13:55at how some material
13:56behaved when you burned it
13:57you could be sure
13:58that all you'd be looking
14:00at in the flame
14:01was what you were burning.
14:05Bunsen's sidekick
14:06Kirchhoff
14:07discovered that
14:07if you shone light
14:08through the burning
14:09stuff in the flame
14:10the flame would absorb
14:11the wavelengths
14:12in the light
14:13that matched
14:13the wavelengths
14:14of the burning stuff.
14:16If you then looked
14:17at the light
14:17through a prism
14:18you'd see a spectrum
14:20and at the missing
14:21wavelength
14:22where that matching
14:23between light
14:23and burning material
14:24happened
14:25you'd get a line
14:26and you could work out
14:28from the position
14:28of the line
14:29on the spectrum
14:29what the burning stuff was.
14:32Kirchhoff called
14:33this trick
14:34spectroscopy.
14:39Now Kirchhoff
14:40had heard of these
14:41mysterious lines
14:42before
14:42thanks to what happened
14:44to a bit of a loser
14:45called Fraunhoffer
14:46who lived near Heidelberg
14:48and who had a weird obsession.
14:50He wanted to make
14:51the world's most perfect glass.
14:54In 1814
14:55he was looking through
14:56a bit of glass
14:56at some fine spectrum lines
14:58to spot if the glass
15:00had the slightest imperfection.
15:04At one point
15:05when he was obsessively
15:07triple-checking
15:08some stuff
15:08by looking through
15:09it
15:09and a spectrum
15:11and a telescope
15:12at the very intense
15:13light of the sun
15:14he saw more
15:15of those lines.
15:18So he took a look
15:19at the other lights
15:20in the sky.
15:21By the time he'd checked
15:23all the planets
15:23and the stars
15:24Fraunhoffer
15:25had identified
15:26no fewer
15:26than 574
15:28of what are now known
15:30as Fraunhoffer lines.
15:48Now since all friend
15:50Fraunhoffer
15:50really cared about
15:51was his glass obsession
15:53he could have cared less
15:54about why the lines
15:55were there
15:55he kept his glass
15:57making stuff secret
15:58but he published
15:59a bit about the lines.
16:00Hence 50 years later
16:01Kirchhoff and Bunsen
16:03doing their thing.
16:04Poor old Fraunhoffer
16:05did make his mark
16:06in the end though
16:07ironically
16:08since I'm in such
16:08a heavenly Indian spot
16:10because he did it
16:11in astronomy
16:11with perfect glass lenses
16:13that allowed astronomers
16:14to see deep
16:15into outer space
16:16for the first time ever.
16:18What kind of lenses
16:19they were
16:20that's the next stage
16:22of our journey
16:22which takes us back again
16:24to London.
16:29This is an 18th century astronomer
16:32looking a long way
16:33the only way back then
16:34with thin lenses.
16:35Glass was so bad
16:37you went for thinness
16:38to avoid defects
16:39but thin lenses
16:40meant long focal length
16:41which meant
16:42long telescopes.
16:44Shorter telescopes
16:45meant thick lenses
16:46and lousy focus
16:48and colour fringes
16:49and a lot of interference.
16:51then in 1758
16:53an Englishman
16:54called Doland
16:55put two different
16:56shapes of lenses together
16:57and solved the problem.
16:59A convex lens
17:00at one end
17:01cancelled out
17:02the defects
17:02of a concave lens
17:03at the other.
17:04Now you could make
17:05telescopes as short
17:06as you wanted
17:07like the kind
17:08needed by the fellow
17:09who married
17:10Doland's daughter
17:11Jesse Ramsden
17:13In 1788
17:15Ramsden came up
17:16with an amazing
17:17new way
17:17to point telescopes
17:19better than ever before.
17:21Ramsden
17:22had come up
17:22with a way
17:23to make incredibly
17:23precise scale markings
17:25on the sextants
17:26which was great
17:27because if you got a
17:28Starfix one degree
17:29wrong
17:29you were 15 miles
17:31of course
17:34so anybody
17:35who wanted
17:35to point anything
17:36with great precision
17:37went crazy
17:39for Ramsden's ability
17:40to deal with
17:41these fiddly bits
17:41I mean
17:42look at the scale
17:44of this scale
17:47Ramsden did that
17:48with a tiny
17:49tangent screw
17:50set at an angle
17:51to the metal plate
17:52you turn the screw
17:53and you can move
17:55the metal plate
17:55by fractions
17:56of an inch
17:58so you can mark
17:59your scale
18:00with extreme precision
18:02on sextants
18:04for sailors
18:04telescopes
18:05for astronomers
18:06and theodolites
18:07like this
18:08for people
18:09like that
18:42and it was in 1847
18:44when they were
18:45surveying their way
18:46east on the final stretch
18:47out along the hills
18:48towards the plain
18:49of the Ganges
18:50that they saw
18:51for the first time
18:52the amazing Himalayas
18:54and being intrepid
18:56surveyors
18:56they measured them
18:57with their Ramsden
18:58theodolites
18:59because you can
19:00triangle heights
19:00as well as distances
19:02one of the mountains
19:03in their sights
19:04was unbelievable
19:06where they ended up
19:35and even
19:50They were so impressed, they named the mountain
19:52after the boss of the whole India survey, George Everest.
19:57Well, that's it.
19:58Our journey ends here at the foot of the Himalayas
20:01in Everest's headquarters
20:02among the decaying Victorian splendors of the hill station of Missouri,
20:09pinpointed on this modern map made possible by all that early survey work.
20:15So, thanks to that original feeling that I had,
20:18that maybe I was a bit depressed, needed to get away from it all,
20:23thanks to Freud and phrenology, criminals and brain research,
20:28bug hunting and tissue staining, Bunsen and spectroscopy,
20:31astronomers and theodolites,
20:37I have the map I needed to get away from it all.
20:48So, I will.
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