Hospital Life: Theory and Practice from the Medieval to the Modern (original) (raw)
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Mending Bodies, Saving Souls: A History of Hospitals
1999
The book furnishes a unique insight into the world of meanings and emotions associated with hospital life by including narratives from both patients and caregivers. The story is told in a dozen episodes which illustrate the transformation of hospitals from houses of mercy to tools of confinement, from dwellings of rehabilitation to spaces of clinical teaching and research, from rooms for birthing and dying to institutions of science and technology. From ancient Greece to the era of AIDS, the book features key hospitals , covering the most important themes in the development of medicine and therapeutics.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World, 2008
From their very inception, hospitals were envisioned as religious spaces, shelters, hospices and places of confinement. Since early Christian theology readily accepted the role of medicine in charitable works, these institutions also focused on the cure of ailments under the supervision of consulting physicians and surgeons. Boundaries between the various functions remained fluid until early modern times. This overview highlights developments since 1800.
Medicine and Society in the Medieval Hospital
Croatian medical journal, 2008
152 sity-educated medical practitioners. This was the period when early-medieval type of religiousness, marked by asceticism, withdrawal from the worldly life, and contemplation, was replaced by the late-medieval “secular” type, which emphasized the need to act socially and charitably. Thus, the number of hospitals was often higher than what the population size required. The representatives of the secular type of religiousness were confraternities (5). These associations of citizens practicing the same craft or inhabiting the same area ...
The Study of Medieval Hospitals: an Ongoing History
Svmma Revista De Cultures Medievals, 2013
On 17 April 1401, the bishop of Barcelona, the canons of the cathedral, the town councilmen and the Aragonese royal family, headed by King Martin, the Humane, took part in the founding ceremony of the Hospital de la Santa Creu. All of them joined in a solemn procession, full of symbolism, which carried the first four stones from the cathedral to a plot of land in the Raval quarter where the new building was to be erected. The presence of the representatives of the main territorial and urban authorities indicated their commitment to the brand-new institution, conceived to provide assistance to the poor, the sick and most of the marginalized who crowded the streets and roads of Barcelona, and the rest of the Catalan-Aragonese commonwealth; at least according to the first regulations, passed in 1417, which explicitly noted that 'poor men and women, disabled, crippled, insane and wounded people, and those suffering from several other human miseries, were admitted, received, maintained and fed in great numbers'. 1 The same text praises the hospital and likens it to the most noble public spaces of the city, describing it as 'light, nobility, ornament, praise, glory and wealth' of the city. 2
Medicalization: Hospitals Become Site of Medical Care and Learning
unpublished , 2004
This synopsis depicts the development of the Western hospital in modern times with an emphasis on institutional medicalization. Covering the period from the Renaissance until 1900, the essay focuses on the ecological, social, and economic factors that prompted the transformation of Christian shelters into medical instruments for the acquisition of knowledge, education, and caregiving. A final conclusion argues that hospital experiences indelibly structured the character of Western medicine, its science, training, and patient management. Disease oriented, with acute and dramatic interventions, it tends to depersonalize the sick as part of a complex, pathologically grounded nosology derived from generations of inmates.
The medieval and early modern hospital. A Physical and Symbolic Space
2023
This volume explores the physical dimension of hospitals as both tangible buildings and symbolic vehicles, examining their impact on urban and rural landscapes. It serves as a testament to the current vitality of hospital studies in the Iberian Peninsula and territories once part of the Crown of Aragon. Contributions from diverse regions, including Northern and Central Italy and the Iberian Muslim world, enrich the discourse and showcase collaborative scholarly connections. The book is divided into four sections: an introduction to key themes, a collection of articles on hospital heritage and urban landscapes, an exploration of the relationship between hospitals and their surroundings, and a final section on medicine and epidemics. It encompasses the work of both established and emerging scholars, while also representing the professional and personal bonds fostered among researchers from different universities and centers
The evolution of the hospital from antiquity to the end of the middle ages
Curationis, 2002
The evolution of the hospital is traced from its onset in ancient Mesopotamia towards the end of the 2nd millennium to the end of the Middle Ages. Reference is made to institutionalised health care facilities in India as early as the 5th century BC, and with the spread of Buddhism to the east, to nursing facilities, the nature and function of which are not known to us, in Sri Lanka, China and South East Asia. Special attention is paid to the situation in the Graeco-Roman era: 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 which existed since the 1st century AD, were built for a specialized group and not for the public, and were therefore also not precursors of the modern hospital. It is to the Christians that one must turn for the origin of the modern hospital. Hospices, initially built to shelter pilgrims and messengers between various bishops, were under Christian control developed into hospitals in the modern sense of the word. In Rome itself, the first hospital was built in the 4th century AD by a wealthy penitent widow, Fabiola. In the early Middle Ages (6th to 10th century), under the influence of the Benedictine Order, an infirmary became an established part of every monastery. During the late Middle Ages (beyond the 10th century) monastic infirmaries continued to expand, but public hospitals were also opened, financed by city authorities, the church and private sources. Specialized institutions, like leper houses, also originated at this time. During the Golden Age of Islam the Muslim world was clearly more advanced than its Christian counterpart with magnificent hospitals in various countries.