Season 1

1. Anaesthesia

2008-06-17

Michael Mosley explores the work of the pioneering doctors who laid the foundations of modern medicine. He begins by charting the development of pain-free surgery.

2. Discovering Vaccines

2008-06-24

Michael Mosley explores how pioneering doctors learnt to harness the immune system by exposing themselves to incurable diseases like rabies, typhoid and polio.

3. Diet and Disease

2008-07-01

Dr Michael Mosley explores the lengths to which pioneering doctors have gone to uncover the connections between what we eat and what we die from.

4. Beating Infection

2008-07-08

Michael Mosley looks at how doctors came to understand infectious diseases by deliberately infecting themselves with conditions such syphilis and yellow fever.