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Episode details

Radio 4,19 Feb 2007,15 mins

Little Reading, Much Seeing and Much Doing

The Making of Modern Medicine

Available for over a year

A major narrative history series exploring over 2,000 years of western medicine, written and presented by medical historian Andrew Cunningham. The French Revolution ushered in new ambition and a new scientific clinical approach that is still taught to all medical students. Andrew explores this hugely significant moment in transforming medical thinking, training and practise in the early 1800s into an approach we recognise today. Chemist Antoine Forcroy's demand for 'Little reading, much seeing and much doing' would have far reaching effects, as a new hands-on method to try to work out what was going on inside a patient's body began to get taken up. The readers are David Rintoul, Peter Capaldi, Jason Watkins and Scott Handy.

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