Medicine, in the early 1800s, was a brutal business. Operations were performed without anaesthesia while conventional treatment relied on leeches, cupping and toxic potions. It was said of one surgeon 'His surgical acquirements were very small, his operations generally very badly performed and accompanied with much bungling, if not worse.' It was lucky, for the doctor at least, that his deafness made him immune to his patients' dying groans. Into this milieu came John Elliotson, the dazzling new