HOSPITALS, THEIR ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION 489 



revolution intervened, and the needed improvements were not made 

 until the nineteenth century. 



When we consider the growth in population and wealth of nations 

 and vaunted increase in knowledge, we can not look upon the eighteenth 

 century as a period fruitful in hospital progress. Many new institu- 

 tions were erected, it is true, but they were inadequate to the needs of 

 the times in many respects. Among the most important establishments 

 of this period were, in England: Westminster (1719), Guy's (1722), 

 St. George's (1733); in Germany: the Charite in Berlin, established 

 by Frederick II. (1710), and the Bamburg Hospital, by Bishop Van 

 Erthral (1789) ; in Austria: the famous General Hospital, founded by 

 Joseph II. (1784). Overcrowding, the prevalence of hospital gan- 

 grene and erysipelas, and the frightful mortality in many institutions 

 made the very name hospital synonymous in the public mind with suf- 

 fering and death. Yet, in spite of all this, it is from this very period 

 that we see the development of the idea of the hospital as a necessary 

 adjunct to medical and surgical teaching. 



The history of American hospitals begins with the hospital erected 

 by Cortez in the City of Mexico in 1524. It was remembered by the 

 conqueror in his bequests, is still in existence as the Hospital Jesus 

 Nazerino, and the ducal family descended from Cortez, the Dukes of 

 Terranova y Monteleon, still exercise their prerogative of appointing 

 its superintendents. A decade after its establishment came the Hos- 

 pital of San Lazaro, accommodating 400 patients and, in 1540, the 

 Eoyal Hospital, both in the City of Mexico. 



Bancroft states that the law of 1541 ordered that hospitals be estab- 

 lished in all Spanish and Indian towns. The Council of Lima (1583) 

 made provision for the support of hospitals, and two distinct religious 

 orders of men were founded in Mexico for hospital work. 



In Canada, the Duchess of Aiguillon founded, in 1639, the Hotel 

 Dieu, at Sillery, afterwards transferred to Quebec. The Hotel Dieu, 

 in Montreal, was founded in 1664; the General Hospital at Quebec 

 in 1693. 



The first hospital in the United States territory was erected about 

 1663 on Manhattan Island to care for ill soldiers and negroes of the 

 East India Co. Early in the eighteenth century pest-houses for con- 

 tagious diseases were established in various towns on the Atlantic coast. 

 A permanent hospital for these ailments was built in Boston in 1717. 



One of the petitioners for the incorporation of the Pennsylvania 

 Hospital was Benjamin Franklin. The corner stone was laid in 1755, 

 its charter having been obtained four years previously, but the struc- 

 ture was not completed until 1805. 



The first privately endowed hospital established in the United States 

 was the Charity, in New Orleans, founded about 1720 by a sailor named 



