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TENTATIVE ITINERARY

DAY ONE - SUNDAY

We tour through some exquisite Cotswold villages to the city of Worcester where, fitting our theme, we’ll find the George Marsh Medical Museum. The museum illustrates the history of medicine, nursing and the associated health care professions, with particular reference to Worcester and the surrounding area. It contains 500 items of equipment including a 19th century operating theatre and apothecary's shop. But our visit to this small, pretty city of Worcester also gives us the opportunity of visiting the Royal Worcester porcelain factory and seeing one of the UK’s magnificent cathedrals.

From Worcester we drive to Nuneaton and the  George Eliot NHS Hospital Trust Museum. Here in this remarkable place you’ll see an Iron Lung used in the polio epidemics of the 1950s, the predecessor of today's life support machines; exercise bike from the 1940s, used to aid in the rebuilding of a patient's muscles after a long period of inactivity; a collection of early X-Ray machines, one of which dates to the First World War, and various apparatus including a tonsil guillotine used when tonsils were removed.

We spend the morning in Oxford, a city that abounds with medical associations; William Harvey (1578-1657), who discovered the circulation of the blood, becoming warden of Merton College; Robert Hooke, pioneer of microscopes; Richard Lower (1631-1691) who performed the first direct blood transfusion (from one dog to another) in 1665 by connecting an artery to a vein via a silver tube; Dorothy Hodgkin, Nobel Prize for Chemistry, chemist and crystallographer, who determined the structure of penicillin, of vitamin B12, and who went on to solve the structure of insulin in 1969.
On our walk of this famed mediaeval university city, and its collages, we’ll see, amongst many other interesting sites, the Penicillin Memorial, commemorating the pioneering work done by Alexander Fleming and his team of researchers in Oxford itself. And at the Museum of the History of Science there’s the original penicillin apparatus, Hooke’s ‘flea’ and other interesting artefacts relating to our theme.

We spend our day discovering some of London’s many medical history related sites. During our general tour of the city we’ll see the site of the Broad Street Pump, where John Snow famously connected water with the spread of cholera. A replica of the pump, with a memorial plaque, now stands near the location of the original pump. We’ll also see where John Lister first pioneered the use of antiseptics.

Two of the day’s highlights will be the Old Operating Theatre Museum at Guys Hospital and The Royal College of Physicians museum.  The latter is the oldest medical institution in England, founded Royal charter of Henry VIII in 1518. Collections range from portraits of Fellows and other physicians associated with the College from its foundation in 1518 to the present day, to the exquisitely displayed Symon’s Collection of medical instruments. Highlights include William Harvey’s demonstration rod, the College’s silver-gilt mace and 16th-century anatomical tables (made by drying and mounting the blood vessels and nerves of the human body onto blocks of wood which were then varnished and used as a teaching aid for the study of anatomy).

As an alternative when the museum is not accessible we’ll visit St Bartholomew’s Hospital Museum which tells the story of this renowned institution, celebrates its achievements and explains its place in history. At the press of a button, visitors are transported back into the world of a 13th century sister, a 15th century apprentice surgeon, and a nurse in the new NHS of 1948. Objects from the hospital’s unique historical collections are also exhibited, including works of art, and surgical and medical equipment used in the hospital. Visitors can view a case of amputation instruments which belonged to John Abernethy, surgeon to the hospital in 1815-27, and the tools of the apothecary’s trade, including pill-making equipment, scales and drug bottles. Visitors can learn about William Harvey, physician to Barts from 1609-43 and discoverer of the circulation of the blood. The patients’ diet in earlier times is explained, and a volume of 19th century drawings and watercolours illustrates in graphic detail particular diseases and cases, including that of a patient with a large tumour of the tongue. His case notes are also displayed, and they record that he was ‘so much offended at having to sit with his tongue out’ that he discharged himself from the hospital. Equipment used by nurses in their work is exhibited, such as feeding cups, a hypodermic syringe and items of uniform. The hospital’s role in the training of medical students is also covered.

At the end of our fascinating day, and indeed tour, you're dropped at your chosen hotel.

© As we publish full tour descriptions, you may find others offering our unique itineraries.  But, just as you find when others sing the songs of Paul McCartney, they're often not quite as good as when sung by the original composer!