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Is There a Doctor on the Bus?
MEDICAL HISTORY TOUR
5 days / 4 nights - Sunday to Friday

English doctors, researchers and scientists have historically been at the forefront of medical discovery and experimentation. Vaccinations against killer diseases, the workings of oxygen, the circulation of blood, penicillin, the development of microscopes, antiseptic, and advances in surgery are just a few of the advances made in England in times past – to say nothing of more recent advances in genetic engineering. Fortuitously, many of these discoveries were made in places just made for a holiday visit! The Cotswolds and England/Wales borders, cities and towns such as Cheltenham, Oxford and London, and historic homes such as Bowood, are just a few locations that are included on our medical history trail. Going ‘In search of medical history’ allows us once again to develop a tour itinerary that is just a ‘Brit different’ and provides a marvellous excuse to see places that you may otherwise never think of visiting. Our tour is not designed to appeal just to the medical ‘fraternity/sonority’ but to the general holidaymaker who likes to be intellectually stimulated while ‘seeing the sites’.

This tour is ideal as a study or incentive tour, and formal visits to modern hospitals, or related lectures, can be arranged if you have a special group.

DEPARTURE DATES & PRICES FOR 2008

Tour Code	Depart London	Return London
MED	Sunday	Thursday
MED 1	11 May	15 May
MED 2	17 Aug	21 Aug
MED 3	12 Oct	16 Oct

This GUARANTEED DEPARTURE begins SUNDAYS as above from central London hotels below.
It is your responsibility to be there in plenty of time.

The Royal National, Bedford Way The Corus Hotel, Hyde Park Grosvenor Thistle, Victoria Station The Holiday Inn Forum The Chiswick Hotel, Chiswick

08.00 (underground Russell Square) 08.20 (underground Lancaster Gate) 08.30 (underground Victoria Station) 08.45 (underground Gloucester Road) 09.00 (underground Turnham Green)

NOTE: Clients should wait by the concierge desk. Return drop-offs are to any central London hotel.

Cost: $1439 USD per person in a twin share room. Single $1599 USD single occupancy

What your tour price includes: Your accommodation for 4 nights while on the tour including both full breakfasts and dinners. Your price also includes all entrance fees to attractions, transportation, services of driver/guide-companion and all taxes and tips other than those you may wish to give your guide.

Airport transfers and accommodation pre and post tour is not included but can be reserved at a specially discounted price. Our London tour base is the Chiswick Hotel so you will be picked-up for your tour here at 09.00 if booking pre-tour accommodation with us.

Want to upgrade your tour package to include international airfare? Click here for info.

TENTATIVE ITINERARY

DAY ONE - SUNDAY

We depart London and drive westwards. As we are passing the world heritage, prehistoric site of Avebury we’ll visit this amazing temple complex before continuing to the country house estate of Bowood.

The first house at Bowood was built c.1725 and is now famed for its sumptuous interiors, exhibition rooms with a wealth of fine furniture, costumes, porcelain, jewellery and paintings. Its magnificent gardens were designed by Capability Brown. However, our reason for including this particular country house above others in the region is because it contains the Laboratory where Dr Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen in 1774.

Our final visit of the day is the splendid Regency town of Cheltenham Spa. In 1716 the town's sudden rise from obscurity began when - according to legend - a flock of pigeons discovered a spring on the site of what is now the Ladies College. The locals, noticing that the pigeons seemed to thrive, tried the waters for themselves and found that they eased many of the disorders that afflicted 18th century man. Local entrepreneurs soon realised that there was money to be made from this gift of nature and started to develop the town in order to attract the wealthy and famous. A highlight of our general town tour will be to see the chapel that Edward Jenner used as a vaccination centre for the poor against smallpox.

NIGHTSTOP: Cheltenham

DAY TWO - MONDAY

Having been introduced to Edward Jenner in Cheltenham, we now move on to his Cotswolds village where he dispensed medicine and where this ‘Founding Father of Immunology’ discovered the immune system, how it works and how it can be exploited to the benefit of man. In 1798, from his Chantry House home, he published all his research into smallpox in a book entitled 'An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae; a Disease Discovered in some of the Western Counties of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of The Cow Pox'. The Chantry, the house that Edward Jenner owned from 1785 until his death in 1823, is a museum honouring his life and achievements. It also houses an exhibition of modern immunology. Within the garden are important buildings. Jenner's 'Temple of Vaccinia' is a small square building of stone under a thatched roof, decorated around its doorway and inside with large sections of bark from forest trees. It contains a small fireplace. In this building Edward Jenner vaccinated the poor people of the district, without charge. It is internationally important for its historical and architectural interest.

We’ll also take advantage of visiting a typical, ancient parish church, that of St. Mary's Church, Berkeley, Gloucestershire where Jenner is buried. This 1000 year old church houses other historic tombs and monuments, notably of the famous Berkeley family and the last Court Jester in England. It was from Berkeley that local families left England in the 17th century to found the 'Berkeley Plantation' in Virginia, USA, and the library of Bishop Berkeley formed the foundation of the University of Berkeley, California, USA.

Being in the vicinity of Berkley it would be a shame not to find the time to visit Berkley Castle. Amonst other events in its 900 year history it was where Edward II was murdered, where the Barons of the West gathered before Magna Carta and where Queen Elizabeth I hunted and played bowls.

NIGHTSTOP: Cheltenham

DAY THREE - TUESDAY

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.

For those not quite as interested in our theme there’ll be a shopping expedition to Hoar Park Leisure & Shopping Village. Set in the beautiful North Warwickshire countryside, Hoar Park dates back to the 1430's with existing house and buildings dating back to 1730. These traditional farm buildings form the centre of the park and have been converted to contain the village.

NIGHTSTOP: Oxfordshire

DAY FOUR - WEDNESDAY

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.

Leaving Oxford we take the short drive to London where we’ll continue with our day’s major personality, Fleming, and enjoy a visit to the Sir Alexander Fleming Museum at St Mary's Hospital. Founded in 1993, the Museum features Fleming's laboratory restored to its condition in 1928 when he discovered penicillin in that very room. The museum contains material relating to Alexander Fleming, penicillin, antibiotics, twentieth-century microbiology/bacteriology.

NIGHTSTOP: London

DAY FIVE - THURSDAY

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. Accommodation is not included in the tour package for this evening, Additional accommodation is available for a supplemental fee.

Note: depending on the composition of the tour party, other museums in London can be substituted if requested or are of more interest to the party. These would include; Chelsea Physic Garden, Museum of The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, British Dental Association Museum, Science Museum and the Freud Museum.

This tour is operated by Back-Roads Touring Co Ltd