i think one of the things that really impressed me with The Terror was how medicine was portrayed and how the script had the doctor characters talk about medicine. since i know (and care) more on the topic i could pick up more on how they kept close to historical and medical fact

like, here Stanley is portrayed using a period accurate stethoscope, which was first invented in the 1810s by Laennec. the modern stethoscope with the flexible tube and 2 earpieces wouldn't be invented until the 20th century

this whole sequence was a treat for me! macdonald's clinical reasoning is sound to me, and his distinction of upper GI (dark and digested blood) vs lower (bright and undigested) GI bleeding was something i'd NEVER expected from a prestige period piece

a medical professional in the 1840s would've seen TONS of TB, then called consumption due to the way TB appeared to waste and consume the bodies of its sick. it classically attacks the lungs but MacDonald would've known it can manifest in the bowel, kidneys, and even the brain

btw, these medical illustrations would've been done by people just like Goodsir! as medical training was formalized in this era, there was a huge demand for medical illustrators to create teaching material because we couldn't take photos

Goodsir is right! that liver ISN'T cirrhotic (i added a photo of one that is). it actually looks very healthy and normal! gall is a period accurate term for bile. many GI issues at the time were blamed on sluggish or blocked flow of gall, which is why Goodsir was looking for it

I SQUEALED AT THIS PART; Goodsir is describing a tension pneumothorax leading to cardiovascular collapse in the language the time. i've added a chest radiograph of what he's describing; do you see how the heart is being pushed to the side?

the speculation by Goodsir using bismuth was BRILLIANT foreshadowing about the lead, because bismuth and lead are both heavy metals with similar enough chemical structures that our physiology would've tried to process it the same way!!

i can't think of anything else that stuck out to me, but that entire bit of dialogue where MacDonald is contemplating Goodsir's hypothesis and referencing various case studies and published lit made my heart sing. he DOES sound just like a doctor, doesn't he!!!

OH WAIT that part where stanley was like, "i'm confusing my latin and my greek". Stanley may very well have studied medicine using Latin, as the transition from Latin to English/vernacular for medical instruction and examination would've happened within that generation

Goodsir says "performed" because dissections would've been done in an anatomic theater. you'd have someone dissecting and a professor lecturing from the high podium while students were crammed around. they reeked so terribly Charles Darwin dropped out of medical school

the historical Goodsir was trained at the University of Edinburgh, site of the Burke and Hare murders. the university profits off that bit of notoriety with public anatomy workshops (BUCKET LIST ITEM FOR MEEEEEEEEEE) https://www.ed.ac.uk/biomedical-sciences/anatomy/public-anatomy-workshops