Portal:London/Did you know/06 2010

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.