A Degree of Excellence - Medicine
The University's reconstitution in 1900 brought radical change to the medical schools of the great London hospitals which became Schools of the University. Their teaching was more formalised, medical degrees restructured and new disciplines introduced. However, only after the National Health Act in 1948 and the Government's ownership of hospitals, did the medical schools begin to see themselves as truly integrated with the University. The London teaching hospitals are now world-renowned and in the forefront of education and research.Many major advances have contributed significantly to the understanding of disease and have affected the treatment of patients both at home, overseas and on a global scale.
One example of this was the work of Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), a student and later, Professor of Bacteriology, at St Mary's Medical School. In 1928, he made the chance discovery of penicillin, by observing its action on staphylococcus bacterium. This initiated further research of penicillin's antibiotic effect by Ernst Chain and Howard Florey at Oxford University, who successfully produced penicillin for clinical use from 1939. For their pioneering work, Fleming, Chain and Florey were joint recipients of the nobel Prize for medicine in 1945.
