e-book Hospitals : their Origin and Evolution

Free download. Book file PDF easily for everyone and every device. You can download and read online Hospitals : their Origin and Evolution file PDF Book only if you are registered here. And also you can download or read online all Book PDF file that related with Hospitals : their Origin and Evolution book. Happy reading Hospitals : their Origin and Evolution Bookeveryone. Download file Free Book PDF Hospitals : their Origin and Evolution at Complete PDF Library. This Book have some digital formats such us :paperbook, ebook, kindle, epub, fb2 and another formats. Here is The CompletePDF Book Library. It's free to register here to get Book file PDF Hospitals : their Origin and Evolution Pocket Guide.
THE story of the birth and evolution of the hospital is a record of the conquest of barbarism by civilization and of the triumph of Christian altruism over the.
Table of contents

One would expect to find the origin of the hospital in the modern sense of the word in Greece, the birthplace of rational medicine in the 4th century BC, but the Hippocratic doctors paid house-calls, and the temples of Asclepius were visited for incubation sleep and magico-religious treatment. In Roman times the military and slave hospitals were built for a specialised group and not for the public, and were therefore not precursors of the modern hospital.

It is to the Christians that one must turn for the origin of the modern hospital. Hospices, originally called xenodochia, initially built to shelter pilgrims and messengers between various bishops, were under Christian control developed into hospitals in the modern sense of the word. We must first give our attention to the east, where the conversion of Constantine gave an impetus to the spread of Christian religion. Ratsinger [4] asserts that a hospital was established at Constantinople by St. Zoticus during the reign of the first Christian emperor, but his authority for this statement is mythical.

We have, however, documentary proof in the writings of St. Gregory, [5] of Nazianus—whose brother; by the way, was a physician—of the establishment of a hospital by St. According to Gregory, it was a veritable city with streets separating pavilions for various diseases and also workshops, industrial schools, convalescent homes and residences for attendants, nurses and physicians. Indeed, the plan seems not unlike our most modern pavilion system; the ancient writer waxes enthusiastic in his praise of it, declaring it to be "a heaven upon earth.

Alexandria boasted a hospital in , founded by St. John the Almsgiver, and at about this same time Bishop Brassianus established one at Ephesus. Contemporaneous was the foundation in Constantinople of three hospitals, one by St. John Chrysostom, one by St. Pulcheria, sister of the Emperor Theodosius II. Thirtyfive hospitals were erected in this one eastern city alone before the tenth century, according to the Constantinopolis Christiana of Du Cange.


  • From Home to Hospital: The Evolution of Childbirth in the United States, 1927-1940;
  • The charity and the care: the origin and the evolution of hospitals..
  • Bastion Kord Part V: A Bastion Series Novel by M.L. Marlott.
  • Customer reviews.
  • No customer reviews;
  • The Quiet Peacefulness.

An orphanotrophium was established in the tenth century by Alexis I. Such was the influence of these Eastern institutions that we find their Greek terminology influencing the names of early institutions of the west. In all the writings of later days concerning hospitals a house for sick people is called a "noscomium," for foundlings a "orphanotrophium," etc.


  • Hospitals : their Origin and Evolution: John Foote: leondumoulin.nl: Books.
  • HM Turns 20: A Look at the Evolution of Hospital Medicine.
  • Next Article:.
  • Next Article:?
  • Navigation menu.
  • Mistakes in the Background.

Perhaps one of the best proofs we have of the activity of the Christians in hospital building is the fact that the Emperor Julian, called the Apostate, decreed that hospitals should be built to offset the influence of similar institutions which the Christians had inaugurated. Jerome [6] tells us of the hospital builded by Fabiola in Eome during the fifth century.

Fabiola, a wealthy Roman lady, is probably our first Christian philanthropist. But Stephen II. The Arabs, speedily changing from a barbaric army to a cultivated and civilized people through their contact with Greek thought in the countries conquered by them, were not long in proving their enlightenment by the standard of hospital building. The first Arabian hospital was built at Damascus A. Virtually the real rise of Arabian science came with the accession to power of the Abbasides A.

The Arab by this time was a mixed nation, in which the Persian element seemed to predominate. Hospitals under medical supervision were not uncommon, although infirmaries predominated. Nuburger states that infirmaries existed in no less than fourteen cities, including Bagdad, Antioch, Jericho, Medina, Mecca—in short, throughout the entire empire.

Current Issue

The part played by pilgrimages to places of devotion among Christian nations in the evolution of the hospital was perhaps even more pronounced among the followers of Mohammed. Clinical teaching was done in several of the large hospitals of Damascus, special attention being given to medicine and diseases of the eye.

The hospital, mosque and orphanage founded by al Munsur in the thirteenth century was one of the most notable Arabian charitable institutions and is said to have had a staff of forty-two physicians. Probably the earliest hospital in France was the "Xenodochium" for pilgrims, established by King Childebert in the sixth century.

Acta Theologica

The practise of making pilgrimages to the shrines and holy places was a custom of the pious coming more and more into vogue, and the monarch's action was a much-needed charity to the sick and weary travelers. The Council of Orleans gave this establishment hearty approval.

Many hospitals arose in France during this and the succeeding century. For at just this period the Franklish empire, more than any other European country, was slowly tending toward the conditions which made it eventually a nation of city dwellers, dimly foreshadowing what came later with the establishment of industries, the foundation of guilds and the influence of trade and commerce on national life. At Autin, at Athis, at Paris, Aries and Rheims, we have records of the establishment of hospitals by kings, nobles and churchmen.

Undoubtedly of much earlier origin was the Hospital Scothorum, which was built on the continent at a remote period by missionary Irish monks. This was destroyed and later was restored by order of the Council of Meux A. These were probably the same monks who founded the monasteries of Bobbio and St.

Timeline of hospitals - Wikipedia

Gall, and carried the art of illuminating manuscripts as well as the gospel itself to the semi-barbarous peoples beyond the Alps. The idea of medical missionary work is not a new, but a very old, idea. Barbarous Europe was converted by medical missionaries; practically all of the monasteries of the monks of the west did hospital work. This monastic influence reached its zenith in the tenth century, and the most famous hospital-monastery of that day was the Benedictine abbey of Cluny, founded in , and commanding not only a local reputation, but famed through Italy and France.

Originally each monastery had its infirmary for inmates, and this under the laws of hospitality was open to sick travelers. Before long the crying need of medical aid extended the ministrations of the infirmary to the people of the neighborhood, or to any who might seek it.

The monastery was the repository of medical as well as all other written knowledge of that period, and it has been proved that among the profane authors copied by the monks in their scriptoria were some of the classical authors on medicine. We must not imagine that the cathedral hospital languished during the preponderance of monastic medicine; according to Virchow, hospitals were founded in Germany alone from to With the growing importance of the hospital it is no surprise to find religious communities springing up whose chief and surpassing occupation was to be the care of the sick.

The first of these was organized in Siena, a cradle of Italian genius, during the ninth century. Soror, the founder of the hospital of Santa Maria de la Scala, drew up the rules for its administration with his own hands. The management was largely in the hands of citizens, subject to the bishop's control. Many such communities were established in Italy and lived under the rule of St. From this time onward the religious orders strongly influenced hospital development. In the twelfth century the Beguines and Beghards were hospital orders which flourished especially throughout Belgium, France and Germany, while the Alexians and Antonines established and managed hospitals in various parts of Italy as well.

Leprosy following in the wake of the crusades, special communities were formed to care for lepers. Thousands of leper houses arose in all parts of Europe—it is estimated that 2, existed in Germany alone.

Product details

Special communities also isolated and nursed cases of erysipelas known as St. Anthony's fire, St. Francis's fire, etc. But the most important event in the history of hospitals in the period we must now consider, the middle ages, was the foundation of the order of the Holy Ghost, resulting, as it did, in a golden age of hospital building extending from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century and not equaled again till the hospital renaissance of the nineteenth century.

In the middle of the twelfth century Guy of Montpellier established the Hospital of the Holy Ghost in the city of his name. Montpellier was at that time the medical mecca of Europe and attracted students from remote cities. Not only the reputation of the hospital, but the order itself spread rapidly through France, building and managing hospitals. Innocent III. It was characteristic of his genius that he foresaw the need of hospitals and the great work they might accomplish.

He determined to promote their building not only in Rome and the Papal states, but also wherever his influence extended. To this end he summoned Guy to Rome and gave him charge of the new hospital of Santo Spirito. Visitors from all parts of the world were shown this hospital and encouraged to establish similar ones in their own communities.

The object lesson served such a useful purpose that very soon hospitals were arising in every city of importance in Europe. The "Benificienza Romana" of Querini gives the names of thirty hospitals founded in Rome itself from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. The part played by the crusades and the military and hospital orders in the evolution of hospitals can not be overlooked.

Disease and pestilence were more potent in defeating the crusaders than the swords of the Saracens, and the military hospital orders found abundant employment. The Knights of St. John, an order founded to care for the sick and wounded, maintained after the conquest a hospital at Jerusalem said to accommodate 2, patients. Many priories were established in various parts of Europe while the order flourished.

The Evolution of Isolation Precautions

At first the knights acted as nurses and physicians to the sick crusaders; the military features of the order developed later. The organization became very rich and powerful in the course of time, and, swerving from its original purpose, degenerated and finally fell into disrepute. The Teutonic order, an organization of German knights banded together for labor in the Holy Land, did splendid work in building and managing hospitals.

Many German hospitals were under its control and, unlike the Knights of St. John, it adhered closely to its original purpose.