Surgery and the Victorian Operating Theatre
27 Sep 2025 | 09:00 AM
Join us at the Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret as our team takes you back to the Victorian era and explores the surgical procedures that were once carried out in our space. To understand the dramatic location of the operating theatre in the attic of a church, they will first explore the origins and history of Old St Thomas’ Hospital and a quick overview of the medical profession. They will then describe the most common surgical procedures that would have taken place in this original space over 200 years ago. Listen as the team delve into the horrors of surgery before the arrival of anaesthesia and antiseptics that helped pave the way to our modern medical procedures.
Delivered in the oldest surviving surgical theatre in Europe, you will see the original space located in the attic of an 18th century church, where up to 150 medical students would have once gathered and learned their trade.
