Imagine lying on a table in a old-school operating room. Faces stare down at you from the viewing galleries above, and your leg throbs with pain from a broken bone -- infection is just starting to ...

Dr Liston, who was given the nickname 'The fastest knife in the West End,' ran a surgery in Bond Street, Mayfair, London, from 1840 to 1846 - the year anaesthetic was first used. On one occasion ...