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Blists Hill Victorian Town in Shropshire revives the sights, sounds and smells | 0:00:02 | 0:00:06 | |
of the 19th century. | 0:00:06 | 0:00:09 | |
At its heart stands the pharmacy, a treasure house of potions | 0:00:09 | 0:00:12 | |
and remedies from a century and a half ago. | 0:00:12 | 0:00:15 | |
Now, in a unique experiment, historian Ruth Goodman, | 0:00:15 | 0:00:20 | |
Professor of Pharmacy Nick Barber | 0:00:20 | 0:00:22 | |
and PhD student Tom Quick have opened the doors to the Victorian pharmacy, | 0:00:22 | 0:00:27 | |
recreating a high street institution we take for granted, | 0:00:27 | 0:00:31 | |
but which was once a novel idea. | 0:00:31 | 0:00:35 | |
They're bringing the pharmacy to life, sourcing ingredients, | 0:00:35 | 0:00:39 | |
mixing potions and dispensing cures. But in an age when skin creams contained arsenic | 0:00:39 | 0:00:45 | |
and cold medicines were based on opium, the team need to be highly selective. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:50 | |
They're only trying out safe versions of traditional remedies on carefully-selected customers. | 0:00:50 | 0:00:57 | |
The start was like the Wild West. People didn't know what was good and bad. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:02 | |
Try and get a bit of speed up. There we go. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:04 | |
The pharmacy was something that affected everybody's lives in one way or another. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:09 | |
They're discovering an age of social change, that brought healthcare within the reach of ordinary people | 0:01:09 | 0:01:15 | |
for the very first time, heralding a consumer revolution that reached far beyond medicine | 0:01:15 | 0:01:21 | |
to create the model for the modern high street chemist as we know it today. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:25 | |
The team are about to face their biggest challenge yet - | 0:01:36 | 0:01:39 | |
adapting to new laws which regulated their trade for the very first time. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven... | 0:01:42 | 0:01:45 | |
In the first half of Queen Victoria's reign, | 0:01:45 | 0:01:48 | |
no professional qualifications were required to run a pharmacy. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:53 | |
Actually, it was the most dangerous shop in a town or village, absolutely, by far, | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
because of the range of materials which were in there. | 0:01:57 | 0:02:00 | |
Realising the dangers, a few select pharmacists set up the Pharmaceutical Society, | 0:02:00 | 0:02:07 | |
as a pressure group calling for regulation of the trade. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:11 | |
Look at this - rat poison, in a chemists! | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
"Contains the most powerful arsenic poison!" | 0:02:14 | 0:02:18 | |
I hate to think what's on this fly paper. | 0:02:18 | 0:02:20 | |
Oh, probably arsenic. | 0:02:20 | 0:02:22 | |
The most immediate impact the Society had was in raising awareness amongst pharmacists themselves. | 0:02:22 | 0:02:28 | |
They needed to be more responsible and safety conscious about the hazards on their shelves. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:34 | |
We have poison in the window. | 0:02:34 | 0:02:36 | |
We'd better take that out. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:38 | |
Oh, look at this - double cyanide gauze. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:41 | |
There's so many things that are dodgy. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:43 | |
And all these powders in all the drawers, as well. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:46 | |
There's so many different things that might explode at any moment. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:50 | |
What I find most disturbing though is all these things aimed at babies and children, you know? | 0:02:50 | 0:02:55 | |
All these poisons and opiates - particularly the opiates. | 0:02:55 | 0:02:58 | |
-Awful. -By the end of the period we're looking at we've got heroin coming along. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:02 | |
That was supposed to be an improvement on morphine because | 0:03:02 | 0:03:05 | |
-it's just a chemical manipulation of morphine to make heroin. -That's sort of our stock in trade. | 0:03:05 | 0:03:09 | |
You come to a pharmacist because they've got the weird, wonderful, strange, odd, the hard to get... | 0:03:09 | 0:03:14 | |
-Yeah, and they're powerful. -Everything. Completely unregulated. | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
Anyone could sell these things, really. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:21 | |
-I think some legislation is long overdue in this area. -Yes. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:25 | |
Experimentation with new synthesised chemicals often provided problems as well as solutions. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:32 | |
New toxic products were in high demand, thanks to their powerful cleaning properties. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:38 | |
Many of the stain removal products, extremely dangerous things. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:42 | |
Things like oxalic acid, borasic acid, sulphuric acid | 0:03:42 | 0:03:45 | |
were all recommended in household manuals as methods | 0:03:45 | 0:03:49 | |
of dealing with dirt. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:50 | |
Metals like antimony and lead were used in manufacturing, | 0:03:50 | 0:03:56 | |
while mercury was used in the making of felt hats, turning people "mad as a hatter." | 0:03:56 | 0:04:01 | |
Arsenic, a cheap by-product from the mining industry, was the most common poison. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:09 | |
Crop sprays, candles, skin creams and rat poisons all contained arsenic, | 0:04:09 | 0:04:14 | |
and it provided the most effective way to colour a product green. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:18 | |
Green wallpaper - such a fashionable colour for wallpaper - | 0:04:18 | 0:04:22 | |
Paris Green, made of arsenic. The dyes in peoples' dresses could be poisonous, | 0:04:22 | 0:04:27 | |
so you could be absorbing arsenic through your skin | 0:04:27 | 0:04:30 | |
as you were wearing your best dress, in its lovely fashionable greenness. | 0:04:30 | 0:04:34 | |
Deaths from accidental arsenic poisoning were so common that an Arsenic Act was introduced in 1851, | 0:04:35 | 0:04:42 | |
allowing only a select few to sell the poison. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
Among them were pharmacists, | 0:04:45 | 0:04:47 | |
but there was still no law requiring them to be qualified. | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
Nick is exploring the few measures that were in place in the pharmacy to prevent accidental poisonings. | 0:04:54 | 0:05:00 | |
He's joined by Ian Burney, senior lecturer in the history of medicine at Manchester University. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:06 | |
You can see a couple out here. | 0:05:06 | 0:05:08 | |
These are ribbed bottles, aren't they? | 0:05:08 | 0:05:11 | |
Why is the bottle ridged? | 0:05:11 | 0:05:13 | |
As you see, there are so many bottles here. | 0:05:13 | 0:05:15 | |
One of the ways in which a pharmacist, in reaching for a bottle, | 0:05:15 | 0:05:19 | |
might be able to know, just by touch, whether it's poison or not is to make them distinctly ribbed. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:26 | |
The place to go for an antidote was the pharmacy. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
-Poisonings must have been an issue in those cases? -Absolutely. | 0:05:29 | 0:05:32 | |
There are two categories of poisoning. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:34 | |
One is accidental poisoning, of which there were many more. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:37 | |
The things that captured headlines, the newspaper-reading public, | 0:05:37 | 0:05:41 | |
were cases of criminal poisoning. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:43 | |
Over the course of the 19th century there were roughly 500 poisoning cases that were tried. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:49 | |
Arsenic was used in 45% of criminal poisonings in the 19th century. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:54 | |
Often purchased from the pharmacy as fly papers or rat poison. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:59 | |
Among the more disturbing cases were those of infanticide | 0:05:59 | 0:06:02 | |
by parents reaping the benefits of insurance policies known as "burial clubs". | 0:06:02 | 0:06:08 | |
There are a number of cases, especially in the 1840s, | 0:06:08 | 0:06:11 | |
in which a working class mother | 0:06:11 | 0:06:15 | |
is charged with having signed her infants up, | 0:06:15 | 0:06:20 | |
not to just one burial club, but two, three, four - | 0:06:20 | 0:06:23 | |
this is again, like poisons, unregulated, or under regulated - | 0:06:23 | 0:06:27 | |
then delivering the child | 0:06:27 | 0:06:30 | |
unto death, with arsenic in particular, right? | 0:06:30 | 0:06:36 | |
-So, killing them? -And then killing them. | 0:06:36 | 0:06:39 | |
Then claiming the money, right? | 0:06:39 | 0:06:41 | |
And, um, you can make a tidy sum on this. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:45 | |
New laws like the Arsenic Act had only a limited effect in reducing the number of poisoning cases. | 0:06:45 | 0:06:52 | |
The Pharmaceutical Society continued to pressure the government for stronger legislation. | 0:06:52 | 0:06:58 | |
They achieved success in 1868 with the Pharmacy Act, | 0:06:58 | 0:07:02 | |
when the government handed them control of the profession and made qualifications compulsory. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:07 | |
The Pharmacy Act was symptomatic of what was happening in late Victorian times. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:14 | |
They were obsessed with measurements, standardisation and regulations. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:18 | |
So we have lots of other acts, as well. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:21 | |
We have the Gauge Act in 1845, which set the standard gauge for railways, | 0:07:21 | 0:07:26 | |
how far apart the rails are. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:28 | |
And then the Football Association was created in 1863, | 0:07:28 | 0:07:33 | |
to set the rules for the game, because there was chaos on the pitch sometimes. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:38 | |
People from one town would play another town and they would be working to different sets of rules. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:43 | |
And the pharmacists and others must have felt really beset by this. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:47 | |
In many ways, their freedoms were being taken away. | 0:07:47 | 0:07:50 | |
In some ways, things don't change that much. I'm one of the officers | 0:07:50 | 0:07:54 | |
of the Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, who regulates pharmacists today, | 0:07:54 | 0:07:58 | |
and we're still constantly in this debate. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:01 | |
What's the best way to regulate? What's the limits you put on it | 0:08:01 | 0:08:06 | |
so that you ensure safety, so that you improve quality? | 0:08:06 | 0:08:10 | |
But also that you don't stifle freedom and stifle innovation. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:16 | |
When the regulations were introduced, | 0:08:17 | 0:08:19 | |
unqualified pharmacists were made to take exams in order to keep trading. | 0:08:19 | 0:08:24 | |
-Hello, Briony. -Hi. -Hiya! -Hello. | 0:08:25 | 0:08:28 | |
The team are meeting Briony Hudson, curator of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum, | 0:08:28 | 0:08:33 | |
to find out more about the exams. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:37 | |
So how would they actually have gone about examining people? | 0:08:37 | 0:08:40 | |
What would they have done in the exam? | 0:08:40 | 0:08:42 | |
A written paper on chemistry and physics, | 0:08:42 | 0:08:47 | |
practical stuff on dispensing. | 0:08:47 | 0:08:49 | |
-OK. -You'd have to answer quite academic questions about the make up of plants | 0:08:49 | 0:08:54 | |
and the technical terms, but you'd also have to identify substances. | 0:08:54 | 0:08:59 | |
A whole range of techniques that they're using to examine people. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:02 | |
And also, you have to do a Latin paper. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:05 | |
So I wonder whether you'd like to have a bit of a go? | 0:09:05 | 0:09:07 | |
Just do an element of the exam, just to see... | 0:09:07 | 0:09:10 | |
I hope you don't expect too much of us. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
-I don't think we're going to... -I think we should. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:15 | |
What I'd like to do is use the Materia Medica chest, which the pharmacy students | 0:09:15 | 0:09:21 | |
would've learnt from, and get you to try and identify some of these unlabelled specimens. | 0:09:21 | 0:09:26 | |
And just to test your practical skills, I'd like you to go away and make some suppositories... | 0:09:26 | 0:09:31 | |
-..then we can judge how good your practical skills are. -Uh-oh! | 0:09:34 | 0:09:38 | |
Administered through the rectum, suppositories were popular with Victorians | 0:09:38 | 0:09:41 | |
and favoured by examiners. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:43 | |
A well-made suppository was easy to distinguish from one that was badly made. | 0:09:43 | 0:09:49 | |
Of the three of them, Ruth feels she has the most to prove. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
I'd always assumed that this sort of, you know, the exams and the | 0:09:53 | 0:09:58 | |
registering, only really applied to men. Only men were allowed to do it. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:01 | |
And the Act just forgot to mention that women weren't allowed to do it. | 0:10:01 | 0:10:06 | |
So, by default, they could. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:08 | |
Yes, absolutely! And a lot of these women were coming out top and winning prizes. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:13 | |
The arrival of an official examination heralded a new era in the Victorian pharmacy. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:20 | |
Gone was the old name, "chemist and druggist", with its druggist origins in herbalism. | 0:10:20 | 0:10:26 | |
From now on, they would be referred to as "pharmaceutical chemists", | 0:10:26 | 0:10:30 | |
embracing the new science of chemistry. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
But to pass the exam, they needed a thorough knowledge of both disciplines. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:39 | |
As Ruth is the only one with no pharmaceutical qualifications, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:43 | |
she'll use the help of both herbalist Eleanor Gallia and scientist Mike Bullivant, | 0:10:43 | 0:10:47 | |
to give her a chance of succeeding in the exam. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
Come on, then! | 0:10:50 | 0:10:52 | |
They'll have to identify any one of the hundreds of chemicals or herbs a pharmacy stocked on its shelves... | 0:10:52 | 0:10:59 | |
..as well as completing their practical experiment - making genuine Victorian suppositories. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:07 | |
Women first qualified as pharmacists in 1868. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:13 | |
Inspired by this, Ruth is developing some new products, to sell in the pharmacy. | 0:11:14 | 0:11:19 | |
You're making up my zinc oxide for me, Mike? | 0:11:19 | 0:11:22 | |
I'm just about to start. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:23 | |
Scientist Mike Bullivant, who runs the lab, will help her to extract | 0:11:23 | 0:11:27 | |
zinc oxide from zinc metal, for a new line of skin creams. | 0:11:27 | 0:11:31 | |
She already has a customer lined up who suffers from acne, | 0:11:33 | 0:11:36 | |
and has medical approval to test out the cream. | 0:11:36 | 0:11:39 | |
-Oh, I remember that stuff from school! -It starts fizzing. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:44 | |
Zinc oxide is one of many chemicals that were new to the pharmacist, | 0:11:44 | 0:11:47 | |
expanding their scope for commercial gain. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:51 | |
It's an antibacterial agent still used on the skin today in sun creams and make-up. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:56 | |
Now, be careful about that, because it's hot acid. | 0:11:56 | 0:11:59 | |
It's an interesting compound. Such a simple compound. | 0:11:59 | 0:12:02 | |
-Is it? -Simple to make. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:04 | |
-Is it? -I just keep heating it like that, and stirring it, until all the zinc's disappeared, | 0:12:04 | 0:12:08 | |
and then what's left is zinc sulphate. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:10 | |
Making skin cream from zinc is a process that requires three chemical stages. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:18 | |
Each of those stages, in turn, produces a useful by-product. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:22 | |
One of them is calamine, used for treating chicken pox and measles. | 0:12:22 | 0:12:26 | |
Another is a sulphate used to make eye lotion. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:30 | |
That white solid is zinc sulphate. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
So that's the next bit? | 0:12:35 | 0:12:37 | |
-Can I do water? Am I allowed water? -Yeah, go on, then! Tip the lot in. | 0:12:37 | 0:12:40 | |
Tip the lot in, OK. | 0:12:40 | 0:12:42 | |
All right, now, | 0:12:42 | 0:12:44 | |
to help that dissolve, that zinc sulphate dissolve in that water, you transfer it... | 0:12:44 | 0:12:48 | |
-Back on the heat. -Do you want to do that? | 0:12:48 | 0:12:50 | |
-I can put things on the heat. -Taking my job! | 0:12:50 | 0:12:52 | |
I know. Well, this bit's only like cooking. I can do that. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:55 | |
It is. Chemistry is like cooking, it really is. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:59 | |
The calamine will be created by the next chemical transformation, | 0:12:59 | 0:13:02 | |
which requires Ruth to apply a series of basic chemistry skills. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:06 | |
See the unreacted zinc at the bottom? | 0:13:06 | 0:13:08 | |
-Yeah, I can see all the little bits. -That's hot. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
I'm glad to say, it's not actually hard to do physically, is it? | 0:13:11 | 0:13:15 | |
-Just... -Oh, I remember pipettes, this is another thing I vaguely remember from my school days. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:20 | |
Just add it, drop-wise. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:22 | |
Yep. Just a drop? | 0:13:22 | 0:13:24 | |
-Ooh, fizzy! -You see? | 0:13:27 | 0:13:29 | |
Yeah, I did see that. And I just keep dropping until...? | 0:13:29 | 0:13:33 | |
The bicarbonate has neutralised the remaining acid. | 0:13:33 | 0:13:36 | |
-OK, so until it stops fizzing, when it drops in? -Yep. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:39 | |
Bicarbonate of soda, or baking powder, reacts with the zinc sulphate | 0:13:39 | 0:13:43 | |
to create the calamine, which chemists know as zinc carbonate. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:48 | |
We'll get to a point when the bicarb has neutralised all the acid. | 0:13:48 | 0:13:54 | |
Then it will start reacting with the zinc sulphate. | 0:13:54 | 0:13:57 | |
Once it's filtered, the final stage will be to heat the calamine, | 0:13:57 | 0:14:00 | |
and that will give Ruth the zinc oxide she needs to make her skin cream. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:04 | |
So, the stuff we want is going to get left in the filter paper? | 0:14:04 | 0:14:08 | |
That's right. And the liquid that passes through is... | 0:14:08 | 0:14:11 | |
-Is the discard? -What we don't want. | 0:14:11 | 0:14:15 | |
-That's largely water. -Is it? | 0:14:16 | 0:14:17 | |
The particles tend to clog up the filter paper a little bit. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:22 | |
With a little time on his hands, Tom is taking the opportunity to brush up on his botany before the exam. | 0:14:26 | 0:14:33 | |
Pharmacists needed to identify all of the plants used in medicine. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:43 | |
It's kind of really basic knowledge that I have to know what's going to hurt people | 0:14:43 | 0:14:48 | |
and what effects all these different plants are going to have. | 0:14:48 | 0:14:52 | |
And how to tell them apart in the first place! | 0:14:52 | 0:14:54 | |
As fresh plants were used more widely then, | 0:14:55 | 0:14:59 | |
a Victorian pharmacist needed a more in-depth botanical knowledge than his modern-day counterpart. | 0:14:59 | 0:15:05 | |
I probably shouldn't have just touched that. | 0:15:07 | 0:15:09 | |
As far as I understand it, it's foxglove, or Digitalis, which is poisonous. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:13 | |
Botany formed only one of six parts of the pharmacists' exam. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:18 | |
Extensive knowledge was also required of all the animal and chemical products used in medicines. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:25 | |
For the practical part of the exam, Briony has set each of the team a challenge - to make suppositories. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:34 | |
So, these bigger suppositories... | 0:15:34 | 0:15:38 | |
Nick is the first to attempt the task. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:41 | |
Cocoa butter, beeswax, liquorice, olive oil, and hopefully a book which tells me what to do. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:51 | |
For reference, he turns to the Art Of Dispensing, an instruction manual | 0:15:51 | 0:15:56 | |
used by pharmaceutical chemists in the late 1800s. | 0:15:56 | 0:15:59 | |
Oh, lovely. Everything's in grains, | 0:15:59 | 0:16:01 | |
which I can't remember how many grains there are in an ounce. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:07 | |
The first thing Nick has to do is get the right proportions of cocoa butter and beeswax. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:12 | |
Together, these form the basic compound for the suppository. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:16 | |
What I'm trying to find is something to give me some sense of the quantities. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:23 | |
Think I should just sign my letter of resignation now, actually. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:26 | |
I think the chances of making this work are looking slim. | 0:16:26 | 0:16:30 | |
"Method: weigh the base, using at least 16 grains for a 15-grain suppository." | 0:16:30 | 0:16:35 | |
There we are. Bigger than that. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:40 | |
So, if we put a 1,000 of cocoa butter in the pan. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
Maybe 20% of that for beeswax. | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
That's a bit too much. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:50 | |
Last time I made a suppository was probably about 1973. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:55 | |
Nick adds the liquorice powder to the mix. | 0:16:55 | 0:16:59 | |
This is the active ingredient, or the laxative part of the suppository. | 0:16:59 | 0:17:04 | |
We're talking bucket chemistry here. | 0:17:04 | 0:17:07 | |
There would be no agreement in Victorian times as to the right concentration. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:11 | |
Probably one pharmacy would have one formulation, another pharmacy would have another. | 0:17:11 | 0:17:18 | |
There are pharmacists who specialise in these physical skills. | 0:17:18 | 0:17:21 | |
It's not my area of specialisation. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:22 | |
But I still have that sense of pride about wanting to be able to make | 0:17:22 | 0:17:26 | |
a good product, or a reasonable product, at any rate. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:30 | |
Oh, dear! | 0:17:36 | 0:17:37 | |
What a way to end your career. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:38 | |
The moment is nigh. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:42 | |
There we have some. One, two... | 0:17:48 | 0:17:53 | |
..three, four. | 0:17:54 | 0:17:57 | |
-Nick's previous experience has paid off. -Et voila! | 0:17:57 | 0:18:01 | |
-Ruth? -Yeah? -Do you want to come and have a look at the fruits of our labour? -We're done, are we? | 0:18:02 | 0:18:07 | |
Look at that. | 0:18:07 | 0:18:09 | |
Back in the lab, all the zinc carbonate has been extracted, | 0:18:09 | 0:18:12 | |
and Mike is now showing Ruth the next stage in the process of getting the zinc oxide. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:18 | |
The zinc carbonate has to be dried, so it forms into a powder... | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
I'm just transferring it to a boiling tube. | 0:18:22 | 0:18:27 | |
..before being heated over a Bunsen burner. | 0:18:27 | 0:18:30 | |
-Be cruel to that! -Be cruel to that. OK. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:32 | |
All we're doing with this zinc carbonate, this calamine, | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
is to drive off the carbon dioxide. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:40 | |
And that leaves us with the zinc oxide. | 0:18:40 | 0:18:42 | |
The brilliant white powder will turn yellow. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:45 | |
Zinc oxide, when it's hot, turns yellow. | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
I suppose if you're a working pharmacist, if you've got notes on how to do these processes, | 0:18:50 | 0:18:56 | |
-that's it, that's your stock in trade, isn't it? -Mmm. | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
-Definitely going yellow. -It is. No doubt. -Give it a shake. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:03 | |
-I think we're ready. -Looks pretty yellow to me. | 0:19:07 | 0:19:09 | |
Just tip it out onto that. | 0:19:09 | 0:19:11 | |
-Look at that. -Yay, look at that! -Lemon! | 0:19:14 | 0:19:16 | |
-And to think that we've produced it from... -From that. | 0:19:16 | 0:19:20 | |
From that to that in a series of remarkably simple procedures. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:24 | |
Yes! Right, come on then, let's go and make this cream. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:27 | |
It will go white as it cools down. | 0:19:27 | 0:19:29 | |
I'm pleased with that, thank you. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:31 | |
Oh, it grinds down really quick, doesn't it? That's ever so easy. | 0:19:34 | 0:19:37 | |
Ruth grinds the zinc oxide down to a fine powder... | 0:19:37 | 0:19:40 | |
I've got rose and lemon and bergamot. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:43 | |
..and then adds a herbal infusion | 0:19:43 | 0:19:47 | |
of essential oils, glycerine, and a red dye. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:51 | |
And look at the colour. Just look at the colour! | 0:19:51 | 0:19:53 | |
You can see I hardly need any. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:55 | |
Ruth will be trying it on a customer who's looking for an acne cure. | 0:19:56 | 0:20:00 | |
Hello, Bridie. Thank you so much for coming in. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:07 | |
Bridie Lloyd has suffered from acne for five years. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:11 | |
I've got this lovely zinc ointment here. You need the tiniest bit. | 0:20:11 | 0:20:16 | |
I think you should have a go. Just on your cheek, yeah? It's looking very, very purple. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:21 | |
Yeah? | 0:20:21 | 0:20:22 | |
-I don't think you want to stay looking purple, do you? -No. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:27 | |
That's something you ought to rub in. | 0:20:27 | 0:20:29 | |
You see, that has given you quite a bit of colour, oddly. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
-And this side looks both paler and pinker... -Yeah. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:35 | |
..which I suppose is what they would have been looking for. | 0:20:35 | 0:20:38 | |
The paler the complexion the better, but they did like colour in the cheeks, | 0:20:38 | 0:20:43 | |
so you get these stories of Victorian ladies that would pinch | 0:20:43 | 0:20:46 | |
their cheeks before somebody comes, to try to get a bit of colour. | 0:20:46 | 0:20:51 | |
A young man coming in the door, "I'll quickly pinch my cheeks," | 0:20:51 | 0:20:54 | |
make yourself look a little bit more red, natural and glowing. | 0:20:54 | 0:20:57 | |
How do you feel about taking it away with you and using it for a few days? | 0:20:57 | 0:21:01 | |
Yeah, as long as I really don't look purple! | 0:21:01 | 0:21:03 | |
Thank you ever so much. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:05 | |
It's the day of the examination. | 0:21:11 | 0:21:13 | |
That's obviously olive oil. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:15 | |
Ruth and Tom still have the practical part of the exam to do - making suppositories. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:21 | |
Suppositories... | 0:21:21 | 0:21:22 | |
Unlike Nick, a professor of pharmacy, neither of them have ever done anything like this before. | 0:21:22 | 0:21:29 | |
Put it on the weights... | 0:21:30 | 0:21:33 | |
They're both using the same equipment as Nick, including a set of scales with weights. | 0:21:33 | 0:21:38 | |
I don't have any weights here, so I can't exactly work out proportions. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:44 | |
Tom makes a bad start, failing to find his weights. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:49 | |
I'm kind of guessing that if I chuck all this together, | 0:21:49 | 0:21:52 | |
then we'll eventually get something I can bind with this stuff. | 0:21:52 | 0:21:56 | |
I'm sure I've done something drastically wrong. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
With too much beeswax, Tom will have trouble melting his mixture. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:04 | |
Just how much oil should I put in? | 0:22:04 | 0:22:06 | |
Ruth shouldn't be adding the olive oil to the mix. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:09 | |
It's supposed to be used to lubricate the mould. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:13 | |
Damn stuff won't melt. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:18 | |
Strain it. | 0:22:18 | 0:22:20 | |
There's bound to be all sorts of stuff in there. | 0:22:20 | 0:22:23 | |
Oh, yeah! | 0:22:23 | 0:22:26 | |
Tom's finally discovered his weights. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:28 | |
That is kind of the basic sort of knowledge that everybody would assume you to know. | 0:22:28 | 0:22:35 | |
Messed it up. | 0:22:40 | 0:22:42 | |
So... | 0:22:42 | 0:22:44 | |
Ensuring the right medicinal content of the suppositories is only half the job. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:49 | |
I'm a terrible one for improvising. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:51 | |
I'm kind of working from a complete and utter position of ignorance. | 0:22:51 | 0:22:57 | |
The other crucial thing is making sure they're the right shape. | 0:22:57 | 0:23:03 | |
All we can do now is hope. | 0:23:07 | 0:23:10 | |
It's the moment of absolute, horrific truth. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:18 | |
Ooh... | 0:23:20 | 0:23:21 | |
Oh, no! | 0:23:21 | 0:23:24 | |
Oh! | 0:23:24 | 0:23:26 | |
Well, shame me fingers were dirty. | 0:23:27 | 0:23:29 | |
Half a suppository. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:32 | |
It's back to the school house and time for Briony Hudson | 0:23:35 | 0:23:39 | |
to judge their suppositories, for shape, size and firmness. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:44 | |
So, test one, suppositories. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
That's a nice one! | 0:23:51 | 0:23:53 | |
-Can I just direct you to the nice ones? -What about this one? | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
That one's poorly. | 0:23:56 | 0:23:58 | |
But you have got one, two, three | 0:23:58 | 0:24:01 | |
four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve... | 0:24:01 | 0:24:04 | |
And yes, not badly formed. OK. | 0:24:04 | 0:24:06 | |
Mine come in a multitude of forms! | 0:24:06 | 0:24:08 | |
Oh, they do! | 0:24:08 | 0:24:10 | |
-They're not bad, are they? -Which one's that? That's my good one. | 0:24:10 | 0:24:13 | |
That's the one you've identified, is it, as the best one?! | 0:24:13 | 0:24:17 | |
Yeah, that one's less successful, we might say. And next, Tom? | 0:24:17 | 0:24:21 | |
Um, yes. Not that successful, I don't think. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:25 | |
I managed to get one and a half. | 0:24:25 | 0:24:26 | |
-Interesting colour difference, considering the idea is to spread them... -They were bespoke! | 0:24:26 | 0:24:33 | |
Oh, OK! So this is for a person that's more sick? | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
-Exactly. -OK. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:38 | |
I know he's had some practice, but Nick's do win. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:41 | |
More produced, and a higher quality. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:43 | |
So very well done, Nick. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:45 | |
With plant and chemical substances to identify, | 0:24:47 | 0:24:50 | |
Ruth is joined for the next test by herbalist, Eleanor Gallia, and scientist, Mike Bullivant. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:56 | |
Having stronger medical backgrounds, Tom and Nick are taking up the challenge on their own. | 0:24:57 | 0:25:02 | |
So I've selected a drawer from the Materia Medica teaching cabinet, | 0:25:04 | 0:25:08 | |
and I'm going to ask each of you, in turn, to identify a few items. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:12 | |
The drawers of the Materia Medica cabinet contain hundreds of samples of the plants and chemicals | 0:25:12 | 0:25:17 | |
that a Victorian pharmacist would have had to identify. | 0:25:17 | 0:25:20 | |
So, could you, for me, identify | 0:25:20 | 0:25:25 | |
this specimen here? | 0:25:25 | 0:25:26 | |
You should be able to recognise that, I think. | 0:25:27 | 0:25:30 | |
What part of the plant is it? | 0:25:30 | 0:25:31 | |
-No idea what that is. -No? | 0:25:31 | 0:25:33 | |
Not at all? It's orange peel. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:36 | |
Well, it's not orange! Clearly, it can't be orange peel, because it's not orange! | 0:25:36 | 0:25:40 | |
It is used dried, particularly as a flavouring. What about this one? | 0:25:40 | 0:25:44 | |
What's that one? | 0:25:44 | 0:25:46 | |
-Is that black pepper? -Absolutely right. Spot on! Well done. | 0:25:46 | 0:25:51 | |
Tom is hoping his botany revision is going to pay off. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:55 | |
What about starting with that one there, 67A? | 0:25:55 | 0:26:00 | |
-It's like resin of some sort. -Yes. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:03 | |
-I'd say it's some sort of tree gum. -Yeah. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:07 | |
No, I can't get much closer than that. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:11 | |
I'd say...oh, what's a gummy sort of tree? | 0:26:11 | 0:26:15 | |
-A gum tree! -A gum tree. -It's frankincense. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:20 | |
Oh! That's quite good, though. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:23 | |
Not bad. What about this section here? | 0:26:23 | 0:26:25 | |
Oh, I know this one. This is cardamom pods. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
Very good. Straight to it. Known today for cooking. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:31 | |
And finally... | 0:26:31 | 0:26:33 | |
Ruth, Eleanor and Mike should be able to identify all of the substances between them. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:39 | |
Let's start off with this little vial which you can pick out. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:43 | |
-Oh no! -Just be careful of the cork. -Oh no, this does look hard. | 0:26:43 | 0:26:47 | |
-Oh, I know these. That's cochineal beetles. -Absolutely it is, yeah! | 0:26:47 | 0:26:51 | |
Let's have a go at this one. | 0:26:51 | 0:26:54 | |
-Barberry. -Barberry? -Like Berberis. | 0:26:56 | 0:26:59 | |
-I'm going to go with what she says, barberry. -Is that your final answer? | 0:26:59 | 0:27:02 | |
-That's my final answer. -You're right! | 0:27:02 | 0:27:04 | |
Briony has an extra test for the budding Victorian chemists. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:10 | |
So, number one, give the symbolic formulae | 0:27:10 | 0:27:12 | |
of ammonice carbonas, | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
chloroformum, and acidum tartaricum. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:20 | |
OK, so who's got the answer to question number one? | 0:27:20 | 0:27:23 | |
Oh yeah, Ruth there in the back row. | 0:27:23 | 0:27:25 | |
(NH4)2 CO3. | 0:27:25 | 0:27:29 | |
Very good. And the next one. | 0:27:29 | 0:27:32 | |
Oh really? Ruth again, OK. Chloroformum. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:36 | |
CHCIL. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:40 | |
I think you're there. And the third one, tartaric acid. Oh, Ruth again. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:44 | |
This is hard. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:45 | |
CH(OH)(COOH)2. | 0:27:45 | 0:27:51 | |
Quite remarkable! | 0:27:51 | 0:27:52 | |
So overall in the exam, | 0:27:54 | 0:27:57 | |
the back row came first, with Nick coming first in the suppository first round. | 0:27:57 | 0:28:02 | |
Next time on Victorian Pharmacy... As the 19th century progresses, | 0:28:07 | 0:28:12 | |
so too do the pharmacy's products. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:14 | |
-That's lovely. -Ooh! Ooh! | 0:28:14 | 0:28:16 | |
Making aspirin to a 2,500-year-old formula. | 0:28:16 | 0:28:20 | |
In goes the ether. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:21 | |
-Nick perfects Victorian caches... -Very chuffed about that. | 0:28:21 | 0:28:26 | |
..and their own brand perfume gets a mixed response. | 0:28:26 | 0:28:28 | |
-Mmm. -Not nice, is it? Not nice. I think it's more for you, than me. | 0:28:28 | 0:28:33 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:28:47 | 0:28:51 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:28:51 | 0:28:54 |