London's Hospitals and the Early Years of Cardiac Surgery

It was not until 1896 that anybody dared to operate on a human heart - the last of the major organs to go under the scalpel. Many important early breakthroughs were made by surgeons working a short distance from the Old Operating Theatre, such as Russell Brock, the man who was instrumental in restoring the venue in the 1950s. Starting with an astonishing operation performed exactly 200 years ago by Sir Astley Cooper, Thomas Morris looks at the contributions of London surgeons to the early history of the discipline - including George Orwell's brother-in-law Laurence O'Shaughnessy, who in the 1930s cured greyhounds of heart disease, and the first cardiac surgery ever performed on an unborn child.

Thomas Morris is a graduate of Christ Church and a former Christ Church Cathedral chorister. He has just published his award-winning book The Matter of the Heart, winner of an RSL Jerwood Award in 2015. He has worked as a BBC radio producer, including 5 years spent as the producer of Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time, and is now a full-time writer.