*Ø* Tours open up science treasures

"The Science Museum is opening up its vast storerooms in west London.

"The public can now book a curator-led tour of some of the 170,000 objects that are not on display in the museum's South Kensington exhibition halls.

"Known as Blythe House, the storerooms are home to early telescopes and operating tables, Stone Age tools and even freeze-dried GM mice ...

"Visitors who take up what are likely to be some of the hottest tickets on the London museum circuit will wince as they marvel at the massive collection of medical instruments, many of them amassed by the philanthropist Henry Wellcome.

"There are drills to open up people's skulls, amputation saws and intricate ivory models of the human anatomy used to explain to well-to-do ladies where babies come from. [!!!]

"A bottle of pills labelled 'Aphrodisiac' bizarrely also carries a warning in small print: 'poison'.

"'I suppose you would just have to chose your priorities,' medical curator Alice Nicholls said." Full text