St Mary's Hospital

We can find this relief in the main entrance of St Mary's Hospital. The centre, situated in Paddington, was founded in 1845 but opened its doors to patients in 1851. It's famous because of two important discoveries: 

C. R. Alder Wright, while he was working at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, was the first person to synthesize diacetylmorphine in 1874. Wright's invention became popular only after it was independently re-synthesized by Felix Hoffmann twenty four years later. That year, Bayer marketed this new medicine under the name "heroin", few days after launching the aspirin. The drug was used as a sedative for coughs and as a substitute for morphine.

Sir Alexander Fleming discovered the penicillin in 1928, for which he won the Nobel Prize seventeen years later. The laboratory in which Fleming discovered this medicament is preserved as the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum, open to the public from Monday to Thursday from 10am to 1pm.

But this Hospital is known, as well, because numerous members of the royal family were born here. Among those, were born in this hospital the Prince William, the second in line for succession, his brother Prince Harry of Wales and, one month ago, his son Prince George of Cambridge.