Portal:London/Did you know/08 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 &mdash; to buildings, now used to house the Imperial War Museum; and continues today, in Beckenham.


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