Episode 1

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.

Episode 2

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

Episode 3

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.

Episode 4

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