Bramwell

A television medical drama revolving around Doctor Eleanor Bramwell, a female doctor in Victorian England, running a clinic for the poor in London's East End. It seems to be standard costume-drama fare except for the subject matter: Period medical techniques are shown in some degree of detail, and Bramwell herself faces a good degree of opposition by virtue of gender.

Though the initial intent is to treat only those who cannot pay, Eleanor can't run a free clinic on her own without taking patients on the side, and a fair bit of the show's plot revolves around ethical dilemmas on whom to treat and why. Rather than focusing the series on exotic new ailments, due to the historical setting, a good deal of the show is spent demonstrating the historical approach to a problem - an ovariectomy for a woman with post-partum depression, for example - and they don't shy away from showing some spurting blood here and there.

This show provides examples of:
 * Anyone Can Die: Rather graphically, in the first series, and  in the second.
 * Blood From the Mouth
 * Bring Out Your Gay Dead
 * Extraordinarily Empowered Woman
 * The Grotesque
 * High-Pressure Blood: Justified. It's usually an artery.
 * Hospital Paradiso: Particularly the episode involving O'Neill and the pregnant child prostitute.
 * Incurable Cough of Death
 * Instant Sedation: Subverted, and hard.
 * Lethal Diagnosis: Only like, every other episode.
 * Race For Your Love: Eleanor rushing to catch her fiance before he leaves for America, fearing that the fight they had earlier may have ruined things. Luckily, it hasn't.
 * Status Quo Is God: Each episode in series 1 and 2 is largely self-contained. At the end of series 2, things become much more settled into a story arc, whereby the story of Eleanor, Finn and her other suitors takes over from purist "case of the week" procedural.
 * Victorian London
 * Wholesome Crossdresser: Frederick, of season 2.