Microbes and Men - Season 1

In the 1840s the Vienna General Hospital was one of the great centres of European medicine, yet many mothers died of ' childbed fever.' Ignaz Semmelweis set out to find the cause of this disease.

In the small French town of Arbois stand the graves of Louis Pasteur 's three young daughters. Two had died from typhoid, one from an inoperable tumour-a stark reminder of the background to his struggle to find the cause of disease.

The early 1870s. Although a revolution is under way in the understanding of disease, ignorance and opposition to the new ideas exist at all levels. Can Pasteur or Koch find a practical outcome of their experiments that will convince the sceptics?

On 6 July 1885 young Joseph Meister was brought to Pasteur's laboratory. He had been savaged by a rabid dog and bitten 14 times. Death from rabies seemed certain, unless Pasteur would treat him with an untried and possibly lethal vaccine.

1890: Germany is host to an international congress of doctors. Pressure is on Koch, working on a cure for tuberculosis, to produce results to surpass the French success with rabies.

At the turn of the century two men, one in London, the other in Frankfurt, were embarking on research which each hoped would provide the cures so sorely needed. At the time it would have been impossible to say which would succeed.