The Invention of Surgery

A riveting journey through the history of medicine, from ancient practices to life-saving surgeries by courageous pioneers who changed the world. The journey from antiquity to the first performed heart surgery was a long, bloody road, full of suffering, errors and medical dead ends.

From early on, humankind dreamed of being able to heal the ailing bodies. However, from the misguided teaching of the humors by Hippocrates and his prescribed bloodletting to complex organ transplants and brain operations, this factual highlight takes us back to a time when we could only dream of complex operations and in which a few medical explorers changed the world with their experiments.

Their stories throw us back into a historical society in which people often perished in agony from their illnesses. A time without hygiene, when amputations were routine, lasted only a few minutes and often meant the certain death of the patient due to blood loss or wound infection. We owe the end of this torment, and not least our current standard of living, to the discoveries of a few courageous pioneers.

Episodic Breakdown
1. The Secret of the Human Body
2. The Path Inside