47§ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



HOSPITALS, THEIE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION 



By JOHN FOOTE, M.D. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 



THE story of the birth and evolution of the hospital is a record of 

 the conquest of barbarism by civilization and of the tiiumph of 

 Christian altruism over the selfishness of the pagan ideal. Bargaining, 

 trading, warring, the nations of the earth have struggled upward along 

 the difficult highway of achievement, making slow but certain progress 

 in the betterment of humanity. Always this approach toward the ideal 

 has been characterized by an increased interest in the welfare of the 

 public as opposed to the individual, and exemplified in unselfish efforts 

 to befriend the sick and friendless. 



No better index, therefore, of the progress of any nation in ethics 

 and altruism can be obtained than a repoit of its work in the building 

 and management of hospitals. 



In its origin the word hospital comes from early Christian days 

 when it was used to designate a place where strangers and visitors were 

 received and cared for. Whether or not hospitals proper existed in 

 pre-Christian time is a much-debated question. The fact has been 

 established that the Egyptians studied medicine and that the sick were 

 brought to their temples to be healed by the priests. To some extent 

 this practise was observed by the Greeks and by the Romans in their 

 temples of iEsculapius. 



There is certain evidence of the existence in pagan Rome of Vale- 

 tadinaria, or dispensaries, for sick soldiers and slaves; but of the exist- 

 ence of hospitals proper, houses of refuge for the poor and the ill, we 

 have no proof. Something more than mere civilization was necessary 

 for the establishment of these tokens of man's regard for his fellow man. 



In India, a country whose ancient moral code was less pagan, if 

 not more Christian, than that of either Greece or Rome, hospitals for 

 men and animals are described by two early Chinese explorers. Pres- 

 cott states that hospitals existed in Mexico before the Conquest, but his 

 documentary proof is indefinite. Gaelic literature is rich in traditions 

 concerning the House of Sorrow, a hospital for the wounded of the Red 

 Branch Knights who lived about 300 b.c. at Tara, the palace of the 

 kings of the heroic age of Ireland. But on sifting the evidence, we are 

 justified in assuming that the claim of the pre-Christian hospital rests 

 largely on tradition, while proof is abundant that these institutions 

 were liberally encourgaed by the Christian Church. 



