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The Human Subject

Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern-day medicine to its often brutal origins.

Humanity's journey to understanding the body has been a gory one; littered with unethical experiments, unintended consequences and unimaginable endurance. It's the story of catastrophic failures, at great human cost - but also successes which made history and saved countless lives.

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins. With every episode they explore some of that dark history and ask - is our present day knowledge worth the suffering it took to get us here?