HOSPITALS, THEIR ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION 479 



There are many allusions in the New Testament concerning the 

 healing of the sick, and Christ himself commanded his disciples to care 

 for the ill and indigent. The practise of hospitality was enjoined as 

 a virtue upon the early Christians; bishops, presbyters and deacons 

 were especially obliged to practise this virtue and references to it are 

 found in the Acts and most of the early commentaries. These docu- 

 ments tell us that in the bishop's house was a room set apart for the 

 use of poor and ill travelers, designated as the hospitalium, or rest room. 

 Harnack 1 states that the bishop was also required to act as a physician. 

 In this hospital inn, therefore, in name as well as in function, we find 

 the legitimate, though remote, ancestor of the modern hospital. 



The many epidemics occurring in the Soman empire, as the epidemic 

 of Carthage in a.d. 252, described by St. Cyprian, 2 gave those who would 

 care for the sick abundant employment. Many a wealthier Christian 

 imitated the bishop's good example and established a hospitalium in his 

 own house. But, hunted and persecuted as the sect was, there could 

 be no organization of this work; their efforts must remain desultory 

 and scattered until the ban was removed. So it is that the advent of 

 the public hospital comes after the reign of Constantine, when a great 

 increase in the number of Christians and the spread of poverty had 

 made adequate individual effort by the bishops difficult if not im- 

 possible. 3 



More than one writer has asseited that hospitals originated from 

 three supposedly antagonistic influences, religion, war and science. 

 This statement is not true for several reasons, but chiefly because history 

 is opposed to it. There was plenty of fighting in pre-Christian days, 

 but hospitals did not result from it. The Greeks had far more sci- 

 entific knowledge than the Goths, yet the former did not build hospitals, 

 while the latter did. Indeed, the real situation is outlined if we say 

 that in the social ebullition produced among the nations of Europe by 

 the introduction of Christianity, hospitals were the distillate and war 

 and science the by-products. 



The Christianity of the Lombards, the Goths and the Franks was a 

 militant one. Scarcely had Clovis, the Prankish king, renounced his 

 old gods than he commenced a holy war upon his unorthodox neighbors 

 with the twofold object of converting them and obtaining dominion 

 over their lands. In the dream of empire of the first great Charles 

 the sword and the cross were close companions. Yet these early 

 Frankish monarchs in the intervals between their wars were earnest in 

 the building of hospitals. Long indeed after the hospital made its 



1 Harnack, "Medicinisches aus d. altesten Kirchengesch, " in " Texte u. 

 TJntersnehungen," VIII., Leipzig, ]892. 



2 Cyprian, "De Mortalitate," XIV., in "Patres Latinae" of Migne, IV, 

 591-593. 



3 Rom. XII., Heb. XIIL, Peter IV., John III. Ep. 



