Page 94 - BBC Focus - August 2017

OUT THERE

03 MEET THE HUMAN GUINEA PIGS NO SCRUBS
Doctors in the 1840s were looking for
Forget about squeaky-clean surgical
QUACKS
new ways to numb pain. Chloroform
clothing: Victorian doctors worked in
was one of the candidate anaesthetics,
and in 1847, Scottish physician James their finest garb. Think tight dress
shirts, cravats and some extravagant
You wouldn’t want to be treated by this lot. Young Simpson and two friends tried it
QUACKS hairstyles. They’d at least take their
BBC TWO, AUGUST Inspired by real-life Victorian doctors, out after a dinner party. The three of jacket off, though. Scrubs didn’t come
(SEE RADIOTIMES.COM Quacks is a new six-part comedy set in the them were found passed out – but along until the following century, as
FOR DETAILS). medical milieu of 1840s London. Created happily, still alive – on Simpson’s scientists became increasingly aware
by James Wood, Quacks stars Rory drawing room floor the next morning. of the link between germs and disease.
Kinnear as a showman surgeon, Mathew
Baynton as a fledgling psychiatrist, Tom SOMETHING FOR THE PAIN? LOOK INTO MY EYES
Basden as a hedonistic dentist, and Lydia Potent drugs were easy to get hold of John Elliotson, professor of medicine
in the 1840s. Laudanum, a tincture of at University College Hospital, used
Leonard as a social campaigner who’s
opium that’s today rated as a Class A ‘mesmerism’ as a form of pain relief.
fighting against the medical patriarchy.
substance, could be bought over the The technique, similar to hypnotism,
Ross MacFarlane, one of the show’s
counter for anything from childbirth to was decried by many other doctors,
advisors at the Wellcome Collection, a mild cough, while diluted versions notably in an 1842 article accusing him
reveals some of the stranger-than-fiction were even available for children. of placing mesmerised female patients
stories that inspired the series… Thank goodness for Calpol… in “curious postures”.

Would you trust
this motley bunch
to treat you?

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