The history of medicine is a long series of triumphs and setbacks in the fight against disease and death. It is about breaking taboos , daring experiments and dangerous experiments on himself , but also by mere accident that led to groundbreaking discoveries . The four -part documentary " On Life and Death - great moments of Medicine" tells this story in the most exciting , informative and understandable way . Four 45-minute parts each paint a striking portrait of the healing art and outstanding researchers. With an unusual concept , it is possible to structure the enormous wealth of topics in medical history and making them comprehensible to the public. Each episode is one of the four stages of life of the people at the center - with the typical for this section risks to life and limb . Red Thread of the series is a garden party where four generations of a family are gathered . All family members have survived life-threatening diseases. Your medical fates lead the audience back to the moments of medicine, without which they would not have survived . Literally experience at first hand the spectators the first hemostasis in operations by the military physician Ambroise Paré in 1552. Together with Ignaz Semmelweis you come in the Vienna of the 19th Century, the cause of the fatal puerperal fever on the track , or take part in the dramatic trial of insulin in 1929 in a small laboratory in Toronto. The documentaries lead the viewer to the scenes of the history of medicine : to ether Cathedral in Boston, where on 16 October 1846 , the first anesthesia of modern surgery paved the way , or in the London laboratory in which Alexander Fleming in 1928 by chance discovered the life-saving penicillin. World-famous collections on the history of medicine as the Josephinum in Vienna opened their rooms and cabinets for the television audience . Pioneers such as the heart surgeon Norman Shumway , the teacher of Christiaan Barnard, and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Murray, who successfully transplanted the first kidney, tell of the early days of organ transplantation , the beginning of a new era in the history of medicine. The great moments of Medicine are scenic reconstructed in the series with funds from the feature film , in part, to the original sites including the garden - house Edward Jenner in Berkeley, the first injection station history. Unique , previously unpublished archive material takes the viewer to the cinematic milestones in the history of medicine : see first images shown from the beginning of ultrasonic technology from the years 1930 and 1950 , the oldest footage for the production of prostheses from 1918 or earliest cinematic insights into tuberculosis therapy with pictures from the light and air sanatoriums in the 1930s. " On Life and Death" in 2004 was among the nominees for the prestigious Adolf Grimme Prize .