This illustration is of an operation at Charing Cross Hospital. By 1901 the standards of surgery had significantly improved, partly due to the discovery of antiseptic by Joseph Lister in 1865.

Minor surgery might be performed - without anaesthetic -at home rather than in a hospital by the local doctor. One former patient, born in 1892, recalls how he had his tonsils out 'at home in front of the bedroom window…[the doctor] had an instrument with a wire on the end which went up like a hook. It was just as if something was tearing my throat. It hurt really shocking.'