How We Worked Then - Medicine
In this programme we hear from people who lived and worked in the 1920s and 1930s.
Patients recall how each doctor's visit cost five shillings, so sending for a medical practitioner was not done lightly. Doctors tell of doing minor operations on kitchen tables and chemists talk about how the available medications were generally either ineffective or dangerous.
Five shillings is the equivalent of 25p in today's currency. To put that in context, in 1931 a widow's pension was 10 shillings (50p) a week and the minimum wage for agricultural workers was £1-11s-3d (just over £1.55p).
