Radcliffe Infirmary

The Radcliffe Infirmary was a hospital in central north Oxford, England, located at the southern end of Woodstock Road on the western side, backing onto Walton Street.The Radcliffe Infirmary, named after physician John Radcliffe, opened in 1770 and was Oxford's first hospital. It was finally closed in 2007.HistoryIn 1758, the initial proposals to build a hospital in Oxford were put forward at a meeting of the Radcliffe Trustees, who were administering John Radcliffe's estate. £4,000 was made available for the new hospital, which was constructed on land given by Thomas Rowney, one of the two members of parliament for Oxford.The fountain in front of the main infirmary building was introduced in 1858 and is of the Greek god Triton.A number of pioneering moments in medical history occurred at the hospital. Penicillin was first tested on patients on 27 January 1941. The first Utah Array (later known as the BrainGate) implantation in a human (Kevin Warwick) took place on 14 March 2002.The site was also the location of the Oxford Eye Hospital and the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology (NLO). Both were transferred to the John Radcliffe Hospital in 2007, and are now located in the West Wing complex.