HISTORY

of
HOSPITALS
HISTORY
As early as 4000 BC religions
identified certain of their deities with
healing. The temples of Saturn, and
later of Asclepius in Asia Minor, were
recognized as healing centres.
Brahmanic hospitals were
established in Sri Lanka as early as
431 BC, and King Asoka established
a chain of hospitals in Hindustan
about 230 BC.
Around 100 BC the Romans
established hospitals
(valetudinaria) for the treatment of
their sick and injured soldiers, and
gladiators; their care was
important because it was upon the
integrity of the legions that the
power of Rome was based.
The earliest documented institutions
aiming to provide cures were ancient
Egyptiantemples. In ancient Greece,
temples dedicated to the healer-
god Asclepius, known
as Asclepieia (Ancient Greek:
, sing.Asclepieion, ),
functioned as centres of medical
advice, prognosis, and healing.
[1]
At
these shrines, patients would enter a
dream-like state of induced sleep
known as enkoimesis () not
unlike anesthesia, in which they either
received guidance from the deity in a
dream or were cured by surgery
Asclepeia provided carefully controlled spaces conducive to healing
and fulfilled several of the requirements of institutions created for
healing.

The worship of Asclepius was adopted by the Romans.
Under his Roman name sculapius, he was provided with a temple
(291 BC) on an island in theTiber in Rome, where similar rites were
performed.
Institutions created specifically to care for the ill also appeared early
in India. All the poor and destitute in the country, orphans, widowers,
and childless men, maimed people and cripples, and all who are
diseased, go to those houses, and are provided with every kind of
help, and doctors examine their diseases. India the first part of the
world to have evolved an organized cosmopolitan system of
institutionally-based medical provision



Modern concept of
Hospital :AD 331
Constantine : abolished
all pagan hospitals. The
Christian tradition
emphasized the close
relationship of the
sufferer to his fellow man,
upon whom rested the
obligation for care. Illness
thus became a matter for
the Christian church.

AD 370 St. Basil of Caesarea established a religious
foundation in Cappadocia that included a hospital, an
isolation unit for those suffering from leprosy, and
buildings to house the poor, the elderly, and the sick.
Hospitals were built in the Eastern part of the Roman
Empire.
St. Benedict at Monte Cassino, founded early in the 6th
century, where the care of the sick was placed above
and before every other Christian duty<first medical
schools in Europe ultimately grew at Salerno>
Establishment of similar monastic infirmaries in the
western part of the empire
The Htel-Dieu of Lyon was opened
in 542 and the Htel-Dieu of Paris in
660. In these hospitals more attention
was given to the well-being of the
patient's soul than to curing bodily
ailments. The manner in which
monks cared for their own sick
became a model for the laity. The
monasteries had an infirmitorium, a
place to which their sick were taken
for treatment. The monasteries had a
pharmacy and frequently a garden
with medicinal plants. In addition to
caring for sick monks, the
monasteries opened their doors to
pilgrims and to other travelers.
Military hospitals came into being along the traveled routes; the
Knights Hospitalers of the Order of St. John in 1099 established in
the Holy Land a hospital that could care for some 2,000 patients.
12th century, the number of hospitals grew rapidly in Europe.
The Arabs established hospitals in Baghdad and Damascus and in
Crdoba in Spain. Arab hospitals were notable for the fact that they
admitted patients regardless of religious belief, race, or social order.
The Hospital of the Holy Ghost, founded in 1145 at Montpellier in
France, established a high reputation and later became one of the
most important centres in Europe for the training of doctors.
The Middle Ages also saw the beginnings of support for hospital-like
institutions by secular authorities
This gradual transfer of responsibility for institutional health care from
the church to civil authorities continued in Europe after the dissolution
of the monasteries in 1540 by Henry VIII, which put an end to
hospital building in England for some 200 years.

The first voluntary hospital in England was probably
established in 1718 by Huguenots from France
Westminster Hospital in 1719,
Guy's Hospital in 1724
the London Hospital in 1740.
Little Hospital, was opened in Edinburgh in 1729.
The first hospital in North America was built in Mexico
City in 1524 by Corts
Mihintale Hospital is the oldest in the world

A physician visiting the sick in a hospital, German engraving from 1682
1820 Engraving of Guy's Hospital inLondon one of the first voluntary hospitals
to be established in 1724.
The Lady with the Lamp: Florence
Nightingale (1820-1910), famous for her
pioneering nursing work during the
Crimean War, depicted here in the
hospital at Scutari, Turkey
Lithograph showing Nightingale talking with an army
officer at Barracks Hospital in Scutari, 1856
Men's casual ward, West London
Union, 1860
Visiting day in the accident ward at Guy's
Hospital, London, 1887
Elderly care at a Manchester hospital in the
1970s