 The Middlesex Hospital Medical School traced its origins to 1746 (a year after the foundation of the Middlesex Hospital), when students were 'walking the wards'.The motto of the medical school, Miseris Succurrere Disco, was provided by one of the deans, Dr William Cayley, from Virgil's Queen Dido aiding a shipwreck 'Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco' ('Not unacquainted with misfortune myself, I learn to succour the distressed').At the establishment of the then London University (now University College London), the governors of the Middlesex Hospital declined permission of the former's medical students to use the wards of the Middlesex Hospital for clinical training.