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A major narrative history series exploring over 2,000 years of western medicine, written and presented by medical historian Andrew Cunningham. Napoleonic France witnessed the second big event that made medicine scientific - Dr Magendie's experiments on live animals, which were conducted to find out how the animal and human body works. English observers found this new field of experimental physiology mere self-indulgent cruelty in the pursuit of knowledge, despite Magendie laying out his position at length. But what did this first generation of researchers discover which was considered to have an important impact on medicine? The readers are Peter Capaldi, David Rintoul, Scott Handy and Jason Watkins.
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