BBC Four · Ended

Pain, Pus & Poison: The Search for Modern Medicines

Nature, Medical · 2013

Last aired: S1 E3, Poison · 2013-08-05

In Pain, Pus & Poison, Dr. Michael Mosley tells the extraordinary story of how scientists learnt to use the world around us to heal our bodies and conquer the common afflictions of pain, pus and poison. He explores how certain chemicals – once invisible and almost magical in their effects - were discovered, captured, understood and finally exploited. In the three-part series, Michael discovers how a crisis in the French wine industry led to the discovery of what actually causes disease; how a German scientist obsessed with colour found the world's first targeted drug and how, if it weren't for a group of Oxford scientists and American industrialists, penicillin - the most powerful life-saving drug the world has ever seen - might have remained no more than a lab curiosity.

Cast

Michael Mosley Presenter

Season 1

E1 Pain 2013-07-22 · 60 min Medical history series. Michael Mosley discovers what pain is and how we were able to control it with the discovery of morphine at the beginning of the 19th century.

E2 Pus 2013-07-29 · 60 min Dr. Michael Mosley explores our earliest attempts to tackle infection and how scientists, chemists and doctors from Louis Pasteur to Howard Florey helped us win the battle.

E3 Poison 2013-08-05 · 60 min Dr. Michael Mosley explores how scientists went from finding antidotes to poisons to applying poisons as cures, a story that encompasses the planet's most deadly substances.

TV listings and show data from TVmaze.