Sherlock & Victoria
Show notes
Welcome to the dastardly world of Victorian medicine.
What connects Queen Victoria, Sherlock Holmes, a gruesome Victorian merman and a surgeon who could diagnose a patient with a single glance?
Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams are joined by medical historian Dr Lindsey Fitzharris, author of Sleuth Hound: The Case of the Real Sherlock Holmes, to explore the extraordinary world of Victorian medicine and its surprising royal connections.
At the heart of the story is Joseph Bell, the brilliant Edinburgh surgeon whose uncanny powers of observation inspired his student Arthur Conan Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes. Bell could read a human body like a crime scene, and in 1881 his remarkable talents brought him face-to-face with Queen Victoria herself.
There are bloody surgical aprons, operations on dining-room tables and terrifying Victorian treatments. But this was also an age of extraordinary medical progress. We discover how Joseph Lister helped save Victoria’s life, why the Queen’s use of chloroform during childbirth was revolutionary, and how royal enthusiasm for medicine helped usher in a new era.
Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams
Series Producer: Ben Devlin
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Content Editor: Joseph Palmer
Executive Producer: Bella Soames
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