Episode 2 A Picture of Health

In these days of transplants, keyhole surgery

and life-saving medicines,

I think it's too easy to take for granted

the amazing things our doctors do for us every day.

We forget just how far we've come in our lifetime.

So I'm going to take you on a journey

to remind us how things used to be.

I'm Larry Lamb. Welcome to A Picture Of Health.

Coming up on the programme...

The story of the antibiotic that saved countless lives.

What could your feelings be? A job well done.

We remember the time that Matron ruled the roost.

I can remember when Matron came around the ward, whoa!

Everybody stood to attention!

How one man's engineering experiments

freed millions from a life of pain.

His work revolutionised our lives.

And Larry's special guest in the Picture Of Health surgery today

is actor Christopher Timothy, who'll share his own medical memories.

Life was quite uncomfortable, to say the least.

Yeah. Yeah, out there in the jungle with tarantulas crawling up your trouser legs.

And I complain about dodgy digs, you know?

I smoked as a young man, and I clearly remember a time

when smokers were everywhere.

Now, we all understand the health risks

and smoking's even banned in public places.

So, how did we get to where we are today?

MUSIC: "Moonlight Serenade" by Glen Miller

Smoking was THE thing to do. Smoking was cool. That was a big thing.

This was the height of sophistication and style.

I had a cigarette.

Nothing looks more glamorous or more sophisticated

than cigarette smoke curling through the light.

Putting a cigarette between your mouth... The first cool drag.

You know, and... EXHALES THEATRICALLY

But smoking wasn't just something we saw in the movies.

It was everywhere.

MUSIC: Smoke, Smoke, Smoke (That Cigarette) by Tex Ritter

Everybody smoked. Footballers smoked, models smoked.

Film stars smoked, comedians smoked on stage while performing.

I used to walk on with a lighted cigarette in my hand.

And throw it in my mouth, like that.

And then say, "I only smoke after meals,

"and I'm down to 40 meals a day."

It was part of the culture, it was part of the ethos then.

You either smoked a pipe or you smoked a cigarette.

It was even endorsed by the medical world.

-Doctors were the worst offenders.

-I remember doctors smoked and drank.

'From long experience, the doctor knows

'to put people at their ease, there's nothing like a friendly cigarette.'

It was just considered a perfectly healthy thing to do.

There was never any harm attributed to smoking.

But smoking was dangerous.

In the late 1950s, doctors were recording

unprecedented rates of lung cancer, and they wanted to know why.

'Coffin nails. Yes, that's what cigarettes are,

'according to the Medical Research Council.'

For a number of years,

scientists had been looking into the causes of lung cancer.

They concluded the main cause was smoking.

'Tobacco, say the eminent doctors, is the villain of the piece.

'A press conference had the ear of the whole country,

'ashtrays liberally provided.'

When the research came out, nobody believed it.

Absolutely nobody believed it.

I don't think smoking has much to do with it.

Uh, it's all based on statistics.

That's one of the things that's wrong.

Uh, I don't believe that much in statistics.

There's actually no proven facts, uh, to substantiate the figures at all.

MUSIC: "All Shook Up" by Elvis Presley

A lot of my friends just disbelieved anything to do with old habits,

so smoking was good for you, drinking was good for you.

It certainly wasn't bad for you.

'The Tobacco Manufacturers Association

'revealed that in a year in which the dangers of smoking

'stood fully revealed for the first time,

'their sales are higher than ever.'

I think scientific proof

is a very difficult thing to come by in absolutes.

Now, cigarettes are small things,

but they're produced by massive companies who have lawyers

the size of King Kong, so they tried to sit on research.

They questioned it, they did their own research.

'Seeking the trade viewpoint, our reporter interviewed

'Sir Alexander Maxwell,

'chairman of the Tobacco Manufacturers standing committee.'

So far, what are the conclusions reached by your organisation?

They are given very clearly in the annual report,

which we've just issued, and which shows, I think,

that there is need for much more research over a wider area

and, in my opinion, to single out smoking as a causal agent is,

on the evidence to date, completely unjustified.

Thank you very much, sir, for your help.

Thank you for letting me put our views forward

you better have a cigarette before you go.

Thank you. Goodbye.

As more and more research was conducted,

the link between smoking and cancer was undeniable.

The Government needed to act.

But the big question remained -

how could they demolish a habit that had been built up over decades?

The answer was huge campaign to change Britain's bad habit.

It started with a series of films

to try and shock the whole country to stop smoking.

'This man used to be a heavy smoker. Now, he's a helpless invalid.'

PUFFS BREATHLESSLY

This was the first-ever government film made in 1963.

Most of the government ads used "shock, horror" tactics.

Two years ago, this man could swim with his teenage son,

but now he can't.

Is that about as much as you can do?

(WHEEZING) That's as much... can't do any more.

If people got lung cancer, then there'd be more problems,

and it's the taxpayers money that support the National Health,

so they naturally wanted to put people off smoking.

More ads followed and different audiences were targeted.

This campaign used children to try to get to their mums and dads.

There was one, I remember, where the child looked up the words

"lung cancer" just as the dad came in, and the child covered them so that the dad didn't see.

Really important.

If you won't give up smoking for yourself, do it for your kids.

Others showed smoking was not glamorous after all.

'Sometimes, it isn't only your health that cigarettes damage.'

-Hello.

-Here, he's nice.

He's very nice, but his breath smells

like you'd get lung cancer just kissing him.

SNORTS WITH LAUGHTER

And, slowly, it seemed the public's attitude to smoking

was beginning to change.

I remember a Michael Parkinson show

when Larry Adler, the great raconteur and harmonica player,

told off Anthony Andrews, who played Sebastian

in Brideshead Revisited, for lighting up in front of the audience.

And it was a great... He says, "You shouldn't do that."

This is an awful thing to say, but, you know, because Anthony Andrew

has become the powerhouse he's become through this series,

I don't think he ought to smoke a cigarette on the programme.

-He is an example.

-Yes, you're right.

He's an example to millions of people.

-I can smoke in Dynasty because I'm bad.

-That's right.

-No good people are allowed.

-I've put it out, Larry.

Consider yourself severely chastised, Mr Andrews.

And a suitably chastened Anthony Andrews, to his credit,

put the cigarette out.

'I'd never seen anything like that on telly before,'

suddenly the first glimmerings of people saying, "You know what?

"People who smoke smell. You know what? They don't live as long.

"You know what? It's bad for everybody."

Since those early days,

the drive to stop the country smoking gathered pace.

Advertising and sponsorship was banned.

Cigarette packets were given a health warning.

And there were tax increases to persuade smokers

their money would be better spent elsewhere.

'If you smoke 20 a day,

'you're sending hundreds of pounds up in smoke each year.'

And famous faces were finally seen against smoking, not for it.

You're history!

And you must stop smoking as well.

Smoking is now banned in all public places

and most attitudes have completely changed.

In a few decades we have gone from this...

to this.

I think the threat of cancer frightened 40% of the smokers

and, eventually, I think it will stop the whole world smoking.

With lung cancer rates now falling, it's clear that the rise and fall of the cigarette

has had a huge impact on our nation's health.

Because of science and public pressure, people kind of woke up.

It shows you how the advances in medical science

have moved so rapidly that, in less than 50 years, they have discovered,

you know, how actually lethal cigarette smoking is.

It all seems such a long time ago, doesn't it? A world away.

Having a Capstan with the doctor in the doctor's office.

HE LAUGHS I mean, it's just extraordinary.

I agree, except, I still, still, am taken in

by the old black-and-white movies

with the shots shot through Venetian blinds of, I don't know...

Bob Mitchum, or somebody, with that, sort of...

And they'd just flick the cigarette away before taking a gun out and going round the corner.

-And I'm sorry, I still want to play those parts.

-You do?

-I do!

-THEY LAUGH Oh, come on.

-I do.

-Ooh, no, no, no.

I mean, I can remember sitting with actors...

It was always a thing, wasn't it, in a rehearsal situation

when everybody's coming together,

then all of a sudden out they come, the smokers are all there.

And often you'd be doing a show and everybody smoked.

-Absolutely everybody.

-Absolutely.

You know, with the book in your hand,

out there trying to rehearse Hamlet or something.

CHRISTOPHER LAUGHS "Hang on a minute!" Yeah. Just non-stop.

The whole image, it was...

I don't remember ever actually thinking, "God, I love doing this."

-Yeah.

-Have to be honest. "Do I actually love doing this?"

No, I never did. It was something I made myself do.

It was definitely...

It was something I felt I ought to do, something I felt,

you know, it was, kind of like, to be accepted.

I swear that I remember at some point seeing a headline

when I was a teenager, so it would have been the '60s, '70s...

Yeah, even '50s, saying there is, categorically,

no available information suggesting that there is

any connection between smoking and lung cancer.

I remember being delighted when I heard that it was OK to smoke

and that it wouldn't give you cancer.

-Cos you'd been sold on it completely.

-Absolutely.

When you consider it in that short period of time,

that it's gone from sitting on buses and sitting on tubes,

smoke-filled, to now, it's no longer a part of our life.

Amazing.

There are over 77,000 hip-replacement operations carried out each year,

and it's incredible to think that just over 50 years ago,

these procedures were hardly even heard of.

MUSIC: "Mirrorball" by Elbow

Today, the hip replacement

is one of the most common operations in the UK.

It is a procedure that we largely take for granted.

But in the 1960s, the operation was unknown.

For people with chronic, rheumatoid arthritis,

the future would be bleak.

For a long time, I was treated for a slipped disk

Because they thought I'd injured myself,

and it wasn't until they did a blood test

that showed the rheumatoid factor.

And then I was told that I had a progressive,

degenerative disease, and my life fell apart.

Rheumatoid arthritis was more commonly associated

with elderly people,

but when Julie developed the condition, she was just 26.

In the early 1960s, they didn't offer as much at all.

And we assumed that Julie might spend the rest of her life

in a wheelchair and in constant pain.

We'd been married one year, we had no children,

our life was in front of us.

And suddenly... it was a hopeless case.

But there was hope.

A surgeon called John Charnley was looking at ways

in which the hip could be replaced effectively.

Well, we'd never heard of Charnley until a colleague rang us

and said she'd heard of his pioneering work.

She said, "You must go and see John Charnley.

"If anyone can help you, he can."

John Charnley was a surgeon and a bio-engineer.

In his workshop at Wrightington Hospital,

he was experimenting with different materials

to try and make a prosthesis that could replace the hip joint.

Charlie was driven by the desire to help patients

who were crippled by arthritis of the major joints.

But he said, "Let's look at the mechanical problem

"and let us offer a mechanical solution."

Hip replacements had been attempted, but with limited success.

Charnley was trying to build an artificial hip

that would not only move like a real hip,

but would also stand the test of time.

And he would go to extraordinary lengths to make sure

the materials he was testing were safe.

With introducing new materials into a human body, there's always fear.

What is going to happen in the long run?

So Charnley carried out experiments on himself,

injecting various materials under the skin.

But committed as he was, building an artificial joint would take time.

When Julie and Graham first went to see Charnley in the early 1960s,

he was not happy with the progress he'd made.

I can remember it as if it were yesterday.

He sat there behind his desk in his three-piece suit telling me,

"I'm really still working on my prosthesis

"and we'll look at you in a year or so."

Julie would have to wait and would face many more months of pain

while Charnley perfected his prosthesis.

Charnley continued his experiments.

After several years, he finally realised

that using a small ball inside a larger socket

allowed freedom of movement.

He also discovered a plastic that lasted well.

We've put into the socket of the hip joint

a plastic socket or cup like this

and replaced the head of the thigh bone

with this steel device.

And we have, in this way, a very low-friction combination.

Charnley began operating and fitting his new hip into patients.

The results were incredible.

In 1970, the time had come for Julie to have her operation.

Her rheumatoid arthritis was so bad,

she needed to have both hips replaced.

I was 29 when he decided he would operate on both hips.

He would replace both of them in the same operation because,

as he said, "You haven't a good leg to stand on."

The surgery lasted two hours and the results were instantaneous.

I remember being stood out of bed the next day.

That was the most significant memory I have.

And the sensation was as if my legs were so long, only.

But there was no pain. It was remarkable.

Within a few months, Julie was back on her feet

and went on to live a full and active life.

The immediate thing is the freedom from pain

and that showed in her face,

and life becomes so much easier when you're not in pain.

John Charnley died in 1982, but he left behind a legacy

that has freed thousands of people from a life of pain.

For Charnley, the monument would be

the patients with successful hip replacements.

Not honours, not medals, no,

but you see before and you see after.

And you see the patient and she says, "Great."

His work revolutionised medicine and it also revolutionised our lives.

Wrightington and John Charnley have given me a life

and I'm so grateful for the work that they have done for me.

-Julie.

-Wow.

-Welcome to The Picture Of Health surgery.

Thank you for coming along and sharing the story with us.

How unbelievably fortunate we are

that there are people like John Charnley

that devote their lives to the wellbeing of other people.

It's so humbling, isn't it?

It is absolutely amazing,

because our life was idyllic until that moment

that this rheumatoid struck and they were telling me,

-Eventually at the local hospital, there was nothing could be done.

-No.

-No.

-There were no hip joints then.

-No. Not at all.

Is it in your family, rheumatoid arthritis? Cos often it is.

Not at all, no.

I mean, as my mother aged, she had osteoarthritis,

but no, no systemic disease, which I was told this was.

-They don't know what caused it.

-No. No.

And when it all happened and you were, sort of,

going to be operated on, was it just something that you felt,

"Anything is better than nothing," was it a situation like that?

You were desperate for help and that this was a chance to have,

-as you put it, to have a life?

-I had so much pain on movement.

Incredible pain.

I was teaching and as you stand,

you might have your weight on one leg,

and if a child touched the other foot by accident,

I would just collapse with the pain.

So, to think that I could have something done about that was,

well, amazing.

Weren't you frightened? I mean, weren't you...

-SHE LAUGHS

-I mean, as they said, "Well, out you get. Out of bed."

I remember going down the corridor on a trolley

and the central-heating pipes above and I thought,

"Oh, well. This is it. OK."

-Brace yourself.

-Yes.

But when you consider that now,

like, 77,000 of these operations are done every year.

It's quite extraordinary how it's come on

from you being, as it were, one of the very first, yeah?

That's true because in those days,

there wasn't such a thing as a hip-joint replacement.

-No, very fortunate. Thank you, Julie.

-You're welcome.

-Thank you.

Thank you.

Nursing's always been close to the nation's heart,

though recently it's been subject to the heated debate.

In the past, nurses were always known as angels,

these days, they're very often criticised.

So what's changed?

Being a nurse in Britain has always been a tough job.

Today, with cuts in resources and an increase in red tape,

our nurses are under intense pressure.

But ask any nurse from the '50s and 60s and the job was far from easy...

..and was governed by very strict timetables.

Five o'clock and a morning wash.

Early morning tea and mouthwash.

By the end of it, you're just about ready to call it a day.

There was certainly a very strict routine.

We did a lot of repetitive work.

Nurses used to train and live at the hospital

and even in their spare time they had to do as they were told.

Seven o'clock in the morning for breakfast.

The home sister would sit there

and she made sure you had your breakfast.

You didn't leave it.

Otherwise you're in trouble. You can't work on an empty stomach.

And at 7:30 you went on the ward to work and worked till nine.

And you were...

-pretty... Can I swear?

-LAUGHS

But though there were rules,

in the nurses' eyes, these rules were made to be broken.

The home sister used to come round, 10 o'clock at night,

you had to be in bed.

-But I did sneak out and...

-LAUGHS

There were plenty of boyfriends around

and sometimes you were a bit late coming back

and then there was a case of having to climb in through the window

of somebody on the ground floor in the nurse's home, and...

everybody knew it went on, I think,

but if you were caught, you would be sent home.

You know, it really was NOT allowed.

On the wards, the nurses really had to knuckle down

and were responsible for keeping things spick and span.

'Cleaning was very important.

'That was handed down from Florence Nightingale',

absolutely, cleanliness was next to godliness

and was THE most important aspect of providing care.

You had to do all the bedpans, all the bottles.

If it was on the man's ward, making beds, washing the mattresses,

and you were never still, you always had to do something.

That smell, that almost being whacked in the face with antiseptic

when you went through, that pine smell.

And it wasn't just rules about cleaning that our nurses had to follow.

There were strict regulations about how to dress.

Every hospital had a dress with short sleeves

and had an apron of some sort.

You had to wear a hat. You had to keep your hair fastened back.

I've always had very fine, straight hair and not much of it

and the sister tutor took me aside and said,

"I think if you're going to be a nurse and, you know,

-"want to look your best it might be useful if you had a perm."

-LAUGHS

You wore black stockings and because it was rationing,

you got a pass and you were able to get one pair of stockings a month.

As soon as we've got our uniforms on we're nurses and everyone expects,

you just do what do you think is expected of you.

It is important, because it reassures the patient.

We certainly weren't allowed to wear make-up. Absolutely no make-up, nail varnish.

Just washed, clean.

LAUGHS

It was very strict. Very, very, very strict.

Not like it is now.

And there was one person

who would make sure that all these rules and regulations were followed.

-I'm going out on the bleep, Pauline.

-Thank you, matron.

For the first 20 years of the NHS,

one person reigned supreme in Britain's hospitals.

This battleship of healthcare swanning through the ward,

all aprons and hats and enormous bosoms and the watch upside down.

"Sister!" Everybody jumping and terrified,

far more frightening than a consultant, surgeon or the doctor,

it was the M word. The matron.

The most senior nurse in the hospital,

matron was in charge of nurses, domestic staff and patient care.

The matrons ruled the hospitals

and you wouldn't dare see a bit of dust anywhere

or go in and see the toilets not clean.

Everything was spotlessly clean.

She used to wear white gloves and she used to walk along the ledges.

If she found a bit of dust in that white glove,

you were sent back to clean it.

And that was that. I'm all for the matrons.

I can remember when matron came around the ward. Whoa!

Everybody stood to attention.

During the '60s and '70s, nursing underwent huge changes.

# You say you want a revolution... #

Nurses began to receive clinical training away from the hospital.

Matrons were phased out and make-up was allowed.

And with nurses growing in confidence,

they were not afraid to challenge what they felt was wrong with the system.

Gone are the days when we're Florence Nightingale's little angels and things, they've gone now.

But for those who worked through all these changes,

it's still a job that has left them with fond memories.

I can say looking back that nursing gave me, has given me,

still gives me in fact, the most interesting life.

But it was very hard work.

The real enjoyment that I had of nursing

was having the mates and that made up for everything.

So, Felicity, Welcome to the Picture Of Health surgery.

It was extraordinary to watch that film.

Does it sort of give you a sense of real

happy nostalgia on that trip down memory lane?

-Wonderful memories.

-Yes.

What do you feel like when you walk in a modern hospital,

when everything is so different now?

Well, I've grown up with it and I'm used to it.

You've lived through the changes.

It's interesting to look back and recognise the Nightingale wards

and everybody regimented in their beds. That was the way it was.

And certainly as it came through there, discipline was huge

because it's a very responsible job,

looking after patients which were ill.

And you all had those funny little hats, didn't you? I remember...

-They were the sexiest thing I ever knew.

-Some of them were.

-Some of them were bizarre, weren't they?

-Yes.

Funny little sort of fan pieces.

Every hospital had its special pattern of cap.

St Thomas' had the most elaborate of caps, with lots of gophering

and frills all round and the bow under the chin.

And the phasing out of the office of matron, do you remember that?

I mean, they were always there, it was kind of part of it.

Well, yes. That was from Florence Nightingale's day.

The matron was the mother of the system.

-The abbess, as it were.

-Yes.

I was quite often called up to matron's office,

to be persuaded to be more assertive and accept more responsibility

and I was encouraged to go and work in the operating theatre early on

to give me more confidence.

-Really? They figured that would?

-Absolutely, yes.

-And did it?

Yes, it did, certainly. Yes.

Nursing made my life, absolutely,

I would've been totally different if I hadn't had that.

-And the responsibility...

-And the way of managing life,

from the matrons and the wonderful companionship of my colleagues

that all started at the same time.

The marvellous thing coming off night duty, having had a gruelling night

and forgotten to do something and you go and you burst into tears

and your friends are there to pull you together and have a joke...

60 years on, I now am still in touch with most of those people that I started nursing with.

-And we're still friends through life.

-How lovely.

Thanks for coming and sharing your story with us.

It's been a pleasure to do some reminiscing.

Thank you very much indeed.

-Lovely.

-Thank you too.

-Absolutely, it's lovely.

Sometimes it seems that barely a day passes

without the announcement of a new wonder drug or medicine.

But few drugs can claim to have helped nearly as many people as penicillin has.

EXPLOSION

1942, and a bloody war was being waged in the jungles of Burma.

GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

The Japanese army had invaded

and British troops were sent over to help defend the country.

Right at the centre of this savage conflict was a young nurse called Enid Grant.

She was just 20, but 70 years later, the memories still live on.

You were hearing bombs dropping and guns all the time.

And the jungle habitat made conditions even more dangerous.

'We had little camp beds. You are nearly on the floor.

'And all the wild creatures were there.'

You'd suddenly hear, "Samp!" - Which meant a snake

and those patients that were sitting pulled their legs up

and a cobra would go rustling through the ward.

At night, you had to put string round the bottom of our trousers,

otherwise the tarantulas used to climb up your legs.

It certainly wasn't an easy life. It was very uncomfortable indeed.

Enid was working in field hospital tents, treating the wounded.

She was dealing with the most horrendous injuries.

DISTANT EXPLOSIONS

The Japanese were pretty vicious.

They'd be brought in, dead,

we were laying out people all the time.

They'd find them in the forests and the jungle.

There were the most dreadful injuries.

And even when the soldiers made it back to camp,

they were still in danger.

The jungle was teeming with disease,

so these injuries were becoming infected.

They'd be lying out in the forest

until they were found, they'd gone septic

and some of them had terrible wounds.

With no real effective treatment,

soldiers were dying in their hundreds.

Nurses like Enid needed a miracle

and in 1944, she got one.

'Men once fated to pass months of agony in bed

'will now spend there only a few painless days,

'thanks to the new miracle drug, penicillin.'

Penicillin had been discovered 15 years earlier from a piece of mould.

'This evil-looking fungus would still be regarded as a pest,

'were it not for a brilliant doctor, Prof Alexander Fleming,

'who discovered that it produces the drug known as penicillin

'a marvellous new cure for various types of blood poisoning.'

But it took the horrors of war to kick-start penicillin's mass production

and the decision to fly it over to our troops.

They got it by injection or drip,

or putting it actually on the wound,

which I don't think we were supposed to do, but we used to

and it was in very short supply.

You had to treat it like gold and be very careful with it,

but it certainly had a dramatic effect.

Here at last was something that worked quickly

and it was good for their morale,

they found here something had come that could really help them to recover.

In the '40s, penicillin was largely reserved for our troops.

These troops weren't just in Burma.

Wars were being fought all around the world.

And other soldiers needed it too.

MILITARY DRUM ROLL

Joe Seely is one soldier who was saved during World War II.

He was posted to northern Europe

shortly after the D-Day landings as part of Operation Market Garden.

But his tour was cut short when, along with a comrade,

he was hit during German shelling.

I knew I'd been hit in several places,

so I instinctively went for my field dressing,

and looking at it, I realised the field dressing, it was a huge wound.

It was quite a lot of thigh had been blown away.

Joe's injuries were so severe, he was flown home.

By that time, I was feeling quite unwell.

Very unwell and every day got worse.

I saw a couple of doctors and they said, "You have gas gangrene."

By that time, I could smell it.

Gas gangrene is a bacterial infection

that eats away at the flesh.

Left untreated, it proves fatal.

I was aware that one of the chief factors

that killed wounded soldiers in the First World War

was gas gangrene.

We didn't really have anything

and what they did have didn't deal with it.

But the world of medicine had changed.

Joe was told he would be treated with a new drug

and that new drug was penicillin.

The ward sister used to dress the wound,

which was quite a big wound,

and she used to have a little pot

and it was a cream and a spoon

and she used to drop this into the wound and spread it around.

Tie it all up, right round.

The very next morning, she'd come and take this off,

and by that time it was smelling terribly.

Take it all away, it was all wet and smelly and do another lot

and I think that went on for about three weeks

and I gradually...

started to feel better.

What could your feelings be?

Thank you very much. Job well done.

And I think thousands of soldiers could say that.

Thousands.

Since World War II, penicillin became more widely available.

No longer reserved for our troops,

it was soon rolled out to hospitals up and down the country.

But the soldiers and nurses of World War II

will never forget where this revolution in medicine first began.

What a wonderful job they did. What a wonderful job.

It has been so successful right from when they first started using it

during the war up to the present day.

I think lots of people were saved.

There were hundreds of them in those years.

And those who were saved by Fleming's penicillin

will always be eternally grateful.

I would've shook his hand and thanked him very much on behalf of us all.

Absolutely.

It's interesting to hear that the drug had been developed

15 years before and it was the war that brought it on.

Absolutely.

Yes, amazing.

You talk to people about this and they say, "that was in the days before penicillin."

I mean, when I was doing Herriot, that was all the time.

"Oh, what would we have done, James, before this?

"What would we have done?"

-We take it for granted.

-Absolutely.

You can go to the doctor and say, "I probably need some penicillin."

You just know it's part... It's a part of your life.

I mean, to be using it on wounds, literally straight onto wounds,

that guy was so stoic, a great big lump of his thigh blown away

and that extraordinary lady that lived through all that

and the way that she just dealt with those horrific wounds that had

been inflicted, you just kind of got on with it, didn't you?

Amazing character.

They showed a lot of the awfulness and described it fairly gruesomely

and then she said, "Yes, it was quite tough."

Life was quite uncomfortable, to say the least.

Yes, out there in the jungle with tarantulas crawling up your trouser legs.

It would never do for me.

-And I complain about dodgy digs, you know!

-Yes.

Anyway, thanks, Christopher.

I've so enjoyed it.

-And I've learned so much, thank you.

-It's fascinating, isn't it?

-Yes, unbelievable.

-Fascinating.

-But it's the nursing thing...

-Yes.

-Amazing.

-Let that be a lesson to us all.

-There you go.

THEY LAUGH

For an expert view from the Open University, go to...

..and follow the links.

Coming up tomorrow,

how two men found hope in the shadow of a life-threatening disease.

It's a wonderful place, the way it was run and everything.

There's a lot to be thankful for.

And the remarkable experiment that brought happiness to thousands of childless couples.

I feel so privileged that we were part of this amazing piece of history.

That's it from A Picture Of Health today.

Goodbye.

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