In this video, History Hit's Alice Loxton dives deep into London’s grisly past. She goes under the knife and takes a forensic look at the horrors of Victorian medicine. And where better to do so than the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret - one of London’s hidden gems.
The museum is housed in the only remaining part of what was once London’s most important centre of medicine, the old site of St Thomas’ Hospital. The tower of St Thomas’ Church, is one of the only surviving part of the original structure. And at the top of its very windy staircase is the original apothecary and herb garret for Old St Thomas’s Hospital.
In 1822, part of the herb garret was converted into a purpose-built operating theatre. Instead of operations taking place in the women’s ward in front of all the other patients, they would be performed here by leading experts, where medical students could watch and learn.
As Alice discovers, going under the knife for a Victorian amputation was a risky business. There were no anaesthetics and very little understanding of germs or infection. But despite the gruesome nature of these procedures, the female patients who made it onto the operating table here would've considered themselves lucky. Most were poor, and were prepared to put up with the distress of a live audience in order to receive treatment from the best surgeons in London. In fact, the trial and error of these operations led to major breakthroughs in surgical practice, paving the way for the huge advances in medicine in the 20th century.
So if you are someone who is fascinated by the gory, the gruesome and the downright bizarre … this is just what the doctor ordered. Stick around to the end to see if I survive the operating table, and don’t forget to subscribe and hit that notification bell.
Up Next in Could You Survive?
-
Could You Survive a Napoleonic Invasi...
Imagine, it’s the mid-1800s. Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, peace between Britain and France had been secured for close to half a century. And yet, for the English, the threat of an imminent invasion across the channel never seemed too far-fetched.
That’s why thousands of ‘navvies’ and l...
-
Could You Survive the Duke of Welling...
During the Napoleonic Wars the British Army experienced a time of rapid change. At the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, the army was a small, awkwardly administered force of barely 40,000 men. By the end of the period, the numbers had vastly increased to over a quarter of a mil...
-
Could You Survive as a Spitfire Pilot...
Arguably the most famous British fighter aircraft in history, the Spitfire, also called Supermarine Spitfire, was the most widely produced and strategically important British single-seat fighter of World War Two. Over 22,000 Supermarine Spitfires were built during the course of the Second World W...
1 Comment