Voices of the Dead

1854 marks the dawn of a scientific age. Queen Victoria delivers a healthy heir after receiving chloroform during labour. Florence Nightingale makes headlines as she leads a troop of middle-class women out into the war zones as nurses. In Edinburgh, we see Henry Littlejohn appointed as the city’s police surgeon, dubbing himself as the ‘medical detective’, investigating sudden deaths – whether accidental or intentional. Never has there been a time where people have been so enthralled by possibilities of science, but this appetite for the amazing is also being fed by a new generation of showmen and magicians, whose invention and ingenuity leave the public often unable to distinguish between the wonders of technology and the art of illusion. Several mesmeric hospitals pop up in Edinburgh, claiming remarkable cures and offering egalitarian training for men and women. While the medical establishment remains sceptical, Dr James Young Simpson has an open mind, dabbling in seances to give this niche study a fair chance. Having faced discrimination from the medical field on the basis of gender, Sarah Fisher sees the hospitals as a place for opportunity. Great danger lies in the shadowlands between science and superstition, between genuine medical progress and cynical quackery, thus setting the stage for a grand and deadly illusion.