Wellcome to the South Pole

Last Sunday, BBC2 broadcast The Secrets of Scott's Hut, a documentary which featured presenter Ben Fogle journeying to Antarctica, to observe the work of a team of conservators, attempting to preserve the hut of the explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott. The hut acted as both accommodation and research centre during Scott's attempt in 1911 to reach the South Pole. It was then abandoned, leaving behind 10,000 items: the everyday and scientific materials of Scott and his men.

We've written before of the connection between Burroughs Wellcome & Co (BW&Co) - the pharmaceutical company co-founded by Henry Wellcome - and Scott's Antarctic Expedition, so it was nice to see within a few minutes of the documentary, Fogle and two conservators unpacking a surving medicine chest, which included Burroughs Wellcome & Co products.

More BW&Co chemicals were visible on screen when the documentary discussed the role of Herbert Ponting, the photographer on the Expedition. To illustrate the importance of Ponting's role, Scott's hut even had a dedicated dark room set outside for Ponting to develop his photographs. And there on the shelves of the dark room... developer supplied by Burroughs Wellcome & Co.

The Wellcome Foundation Archives held in the Wellcome Library include more details on the role Burroughs Wellcome & Co played in this and many other expeditions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

The Secret of Scott's Hut is available on the BBC iPlayer to viewers in the UK until Sunday April 24th.

Images:
- Medicine bottles in Scott's hut. On the right is Burroughs Wellcome & Co 'Tabloid' Liquorice Compound Powder, to soothe upset stomachs. Taken from this BBC Slideshow.
- Advert for 'Tabloid' 'Rytol' showing Herbert Ponting, official photographer to the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910, developing a plate with 'Tabloid' 'Rytol' in his dark-room in the hut featured in the documentary (WF/M/PB/25/01/10).

'Sinful Sex and Demon Drink' in the Wellcome Library

This week saw the broadcast on BBC2 of the concluding part of Ian Hislop's Age of the Do-Gooders, a series which set out to restore the reputation of Victorian social campaigners and reformers.

The concluding episode - Sinful Sex and Demon Drink - featured a sequence filmed in the Wellcome Library. This discussed the work of the social purity campaigner Ellice Hopkins (1836-1904) and featured presenter Ian Hislop read from a copy we have of her instructional pamphlet 'True Manliness', which promoted the virtues of male chastity.

The episode - along with the first two in the series - featured a wealth of material on health in the nineteenth century and is available through the BBC iPlayer to viewers in the UK until Monday 20th December.

Image: Ian Hislop (BBC Press Office)

Victorian Pharmacy

Last night on BBC2 saw the start of a new four part documentary series, Victorian Pharmacy.

Doing what it says on the (medical) tin, the series aims to reconstruct life in a 19th century pharmacy. Each week historian Ruth Goodman, Professor Nick Barber and PhD student Tom Quick will seek to re-enter the world of medicine in the 1800s.

In the first episode, the team got to grips with leeches and scarifiers, tried to use a bronchial kettle to cure coughs and discovered the medical origins of Indian tonic water and Worcester Sauce.

The next three weeks promise more medical history reconstructions and readers are encouraged to tune in: not only to learn more about how our great-great-grandparents sought to cure their ills, but to keep an eye out for images from the Wellcome Library's collections which will appear in the series.

All four episodes will be available to watch for seven days in the UK through the BBC iPlayer.

Blood and Guts in the Wellcome Library

Currently airing on Saturday nights on BBC2 – and so available to watch through the BBC iplayer – is Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery.

First shown on BBC4 last year, the series charts the "brutal, bloody and dangerous history of surgery", often with the use of graphic imagery from modern day operations.

Slightly less visceral is the accompanying book for the series, which includes the following acknowledgement from its author, Richard Hollingham:

"If there is one institution that made this book possible, it is the Wellcome Library. I have spent many happy hours there, leafing through old books, papers and journals... The biggest problem with the Wellcome Library is that it is very easy to get diverted. I spent an afternoon reading graphic case notes on early eye operations, only to realize there was no space for them in the book..."