Did you know...
- ... that St Bartholomew's Hospital, in Smithfield was founded by Rahere, formerly the King's jester, in 1123 ...
- ... that St Thomas' Hospital was named for the English martyr, Thomas Becket and was founded sometime before 1173 ...
- ... University College Hospital was founded in 1834 because Middlesex Hospital refused University College London medical students access to its wards; and it was where Robert Liston performed the first operation in Europe under ether ...
- ... Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin at St May's Paddington in 1928 ...
- ... in the early 19th-century, the demand for cadavers exceeded the supply. Medical schools resorted to resurrection men, or body-snatchers to obtain corpses. The London Burkers were convicted of murder to expand the supply. This led to the Anatomy Act 1832.
- ... that Liverpool Street railway station is built on the original 13th-century site of the Bethlem Royal Hospital; the asylum moved to St George's Fields in 1815 — to buildings, now used to house the Imperial War Museum; and continues today, in Beckenham.