What is medical tourism?
Medical tourists elect to travel across international borders to receive some form of medical treatment. Treatments may span the full range of medical services. Most common: dental care, cosmetic surgery, elective surgery, and fertility treatment.
The first recorded instance of people traveling for medical treatment dates back thousands of years to when Greek pilgrims traveled from the eastern Mediterranean to a small area in the Saronic Gulf called Epidauria. This territory was the sanctuary of the healing god Asklepios.
Spa towns and sanitaria were early forms of medical tourism. In 18th-century Europe patients visited spas because they were places with supposedly health-giving mineral waters, treating diseases from gout to liver disorders and bronchitis.
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