19: 1954: Living Longer | People’s Century

Duration: 52'29''

Synopsis

Medical advances allow people to live longer and healthier lives. Penicillin is developed in time to save lives during the Second World War.

Further Information

More clips from 03

20: 1949: Great Leap Forward | People's Century

20: 1949: Great Leap Forward | People's Century

BBC Two | 1997 | 53'42''

Communism helps modernise China, but the decisions and personality cult of CCP Chairman Mao Zedong has a traumatic effect on ...

21: 1968: New Release | People's Century

21: 1968: New Release | People's Century

BBC Two | 1997 | 53'34''

The baby boom produced a cohort of children in the affluent and secure post-war world who for the first time would question establis...

22: 1970: Half the People | People's Century

22: 1970: Half the People | People's Century

BBC Two | 1997 | 53'08''

Women struggle to win political and economic rights in societies gamed to entrench male privilege. Even with limited suffrage, a...

23: 1975: War of the Flea | People's Century

23: 1975: War of the Flea | People's Century

BBC Two | 1997 | 53'37''

While in the second half of the century there are fewer conventional wars, civil conflicts under the backdrop of superpower riva...

24: 1979: God Fights Back | People's Century

24: 1979: God Fights Back | People's Century

BBC Two | 1997 | 53'22''

Religion makes a comeback into people's lives in the Islamic world and elsewhere, as people seek guidance and spiritual sustenan...

25: 1989: People Power | People's Century

25: 1989: People Power | People's Century

BBC Two | 1997 | 53'09''

By the 1970s the people in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were becoming aware of the economic failures of central planning.

26: 1997: Fast Forward | People's Century

26: 1997: Fast Forward | People's Century

BBC Two | 1997 | 53'58''

Governments around the world liberalise trade and withdraw from intervening in the economy, giving new opportunities to those who a...

More resources about Medicine in modern Britain

2: Into the Heart | The Courage to Fail

2: Into the Heart | The Courage to Fail

BBC Two | 1987 | 50'34''

Crippled children, blue and breathless with congenital heart disease, were sent home to die. Operating on the inside of the heart was...

3: Brave New World | Pandemic 2020

3: Brave New World | Pandemic 2020

BBC Two | 2021 | 59'36''

From the Amazon to churches in the US and the slums of Delhi, reason and science battle conspiracy and denial.

3: Doers Not Thinkers | The Courage to Fail

3: Doers Not Thinkers | The Courage to Fail

BBC Two | 1987 | 47'21''

By the early 1970s, surgeons were riding the crest of a wave. But controversy and uncertainty surrounded one of the commonest ope...

4: A Gift of Life | The Courage to Fail

4: A Gift of Life | The Courage to Fail

BBC Two | 1987 | 51'20''

Richard Herrick, a young man dying of kidney disease, is about to make medical history. Surgeons will save his life by transplanting ...

4: Medicine and War | History File

4: Medicine and War | History File

BBC Two | 1998 | 24'04''

This prog looks at the relationship between medicine and war. Does war help or hinder medicine? Surviving records from WWI help us to unde...

5: End of an Era | The Courage to Fail

5: End of an Era | The Courage to Fail

BBC Two | 1987 | 48'59''

Christiaan Barnard became the most famous surgeon in the world by successfully transplanting a human heart. Yet so disastrous were the...

Jenner's Marvellous Medicine | A History of the World

Jenner's Marvellous Medicine | A History of the World

BBC One | 2010 | 29'05''

Professor Mark Horton tells the epic story of the world's greatest medical discovery. Edward Jenner's vaccination for s...

S8E8: Children Of The Iron Lung | Secret History

S8E8: Children Of The Iron Lung | Secret History

Channel 4 | 2000 | 49'50''

For the greater part of the twentieth century, polio spread panic throughout the Western world and caused paralysis in its v...

The NHS: A Difficult Beginning

The NHS: A Difficult Beginning

BBC Two | 2008 | 1'17'50''

The story of the birth of the NHS, revealing how close its opponents came to defeating it and why the some of the fiercest opposition came fro...