HOSPITAL (from OE hospital, Fr. 11600, from MI.. hospito/c, inn, from Lat. hospitalis, re lating to a guest or host, from hospes. guest, host). A place used for the shelter and treat ment of the sick or In the earlier days, orphans and helpless children were brought up in institutions called hospitals. Leper hospitals were established in early times and were called 'spitals' or hospitia.
IIospilals were founded in very early times. India, Persia, and Arabia hail hospitals sup ported by their kings and rulers before the Christian Era. As far back as the earliest period of Oreek hi-tory the sick are said to have been treated in the Temple of .-Eseulapius at Epidau rus. In the early Jewish period a house for the reception of the sick was Palled Beth Iloletn. Such an institution was Beth Saida, mentioned in the New Testament. These hospitals seem to have been Isooden huts. III ancient Egypt hos pitals were unknown, the sick being tended at home or in temples. Plato says that the “reeks, on the other hand, maintained shelter houses for the sick in various parts of the country, supplied with attendants. The best institutions of the kind in ancient times were undoubtedly in Nome. The inscription upon a tablet discovered near Pineen•a. dated in the time of 'frajan, shows that the Romans not only possessed such houses, hut that they were actually endowed. I 1O1. of t he earliest hospital, on record was probably tlint founded by Valens in Cz••area, between A.m. 370 and :180.
At the present, time two general classes of hospital relief work are carried on in the large cities of the world. In dispensa•ies patient, are treated who arc able to be about and have tem porary or serious illness, not sufficient ly severe to eontine them to lied. In hospito/s patients aro treated who must lie confined to their beds, for certain times at least. Alany dispensaries are associated with teaching institutions and are then termed clinics, and the patients who come are, in some instances, utilized to instruet the stu dents of medicine. The word infirmary is a common English term for both dispensaries and hospitals.
The term hospital is now rarely used for those custodial and teaching institutions that care for foundlings and orphans. These are termed asy lums, or homes. or colleges. A number in Eng land retain the old name, sneh as Clirist's Hos pital in London, Hospital, Donaldson's Hospital, Edinburgh, etc. Similarly, institutions fur the aged and indigent at the present time are rarely termed hospitals, but homes, alms houses, ete. Thus the term hospital has come to be restricted to an institution in which the sick are treated, whether such illness lie of the brain or of other parts of the body.
The history of the development of the modern hospital is both interesting and instructive. Ono of the earliest of recognized hospitals was in France, and the present Imtei Dieu of Paris is supposed to have had its origin as early as the seventh eentury. During the Crusades many hos pitals were built, and there arose a special class, the //ospitafers, or knights whose duty it was to take care of the sick. The present Orders of Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Charity, and allied societies, had a somewhat similar origin. With the establishment of the schools of learning. and more particularly with the development of the slimly of medicine, many of the hospitals formed departments in the universities, and the univer sity towns developed large and important hospi tal facilities. Ihdogna and the Italian towns led the way. Paris and the schools of France followed, and in England and Seolland the hos pitals of London and Edinburgh were the great medical schools. Thus Saint Thomas's, of Lon don, was established in 1553; Saint Bartholo mew's in 1516, where, in 1609, Harvey, who discovered the real nature of the circulation, was physician; and Ilethlehem in 1547. The hospitals of the United States were largely found ed on English models, although the influence of the Freneb school was not absent in the early history of this country. It seems probable that the earliest hospital founded in the United States was the Pennsylvania Hospital, although there were earlier institutions in Canada and Mexico.