Bloody Beginnings

Documentary series about the brutal, bloody and dangerous history of surgery looks at how surgery dragged itself kicking and screaming out of the dark ages, transforming itself from butchery into a science.

Presenter Michael Mosley finds out how the early days of surgery were dark and barbaric, when the surgeon's knife was more likely to kill you than save you, and invasive medicine generally meant being bloodlet by leeches to within an inch of your life.