Places to go after you've attended Outpatients and been fobbed off with a brusque junior doctor: number 1 The Royal London Hospital Museum (Open Monday to Friday, 10am-4.30pm)
You'd never find it by accident, tucked away in a crypt in a Whitechapel backstreet. Head through hospital reception, across a courtyard garden between wards and clinics, then look around for the swallowed-up church. Down that hidden ramp on the right, past the two off-duty nurses having a crafty fag, and through the big wooden door. It's a bijou museum-ette, detailing the 250 year-old history of East London's premier medical establishment. You might even get the place to yourself, just you and a few old scalpels.
The Royal London's been around a while, long enough to have seen medicine transformed. Operations are no longer carried out using laughing gas and dodgy amputation saws, with staff summoned by a ringing bell. Nurses no longer wear starched hats, or wield shiny pocket watches, or rush off to the trenches to save dying soldiers. And doctors no longer make teeth for George Washington, or minister to the Elephant Man, or mop up after Jack the Ripper. Ah yes, there's some proper history here alright.
Don't come expecting an extensive collection - you'll not be here more than 20 minutes (unless you sit down to watch one of the videos featuring Joseph Merrick or Casualty 1906). And don't come expecting to fork out lots of cash, not unless you're keen to buy something from the little shop (or to leave a donation for the museum's upkeep). But docome if you fancy somewhere little, and a little different, for a poke around inside a dedicated world of social service.
n.b. London has rather more of these medical museums than you might realise - see here for a full list.
You'd never find it by accident, tucked away in a crypt in a Whitechapel backstreet. Head through hospital reception, across a courtyard garden between wards and clinics, then look around for the swallowed-up church. Down that hidden ramp on the right, past the two off-duty nurses having a crafty fag, and through the big wooden door. It's a bijou museum-ette, detailing the 250 year-old history of East London's premier medical establishment. You might even get the place to yourself, just you and a few old scalpels.
