War surgeons. Pt. 1.

First in a 3-part series of documentaries looking at how some of the greatest advances in medicine are made during wars, due to treatment of war wounded. Dramatic reconstructions show how war wounds inflicted by the weapons in use at any time have required different surgery techniques, as well as how the development of warfare contributed to the improvement in the standards of treatment and the understanding of medicine. These reconstructions are contrasted with graphic real-life surgery from the present day, at a Red Cross Hospital in Kenya, Gwynedd Hospital in North Wales and a trauma unit in Johannesburg. The historical periods covered in this programme range from the ancient Egyptians to the Boer war, via the Romans, mediaeval age and the Napoleonic and American Civil Wars.