The history of hospitals began in antiquity with hospitals in Greece, the Roman Empire and on the Indian subcontinent as well, starting with precursors in the Asclepian temples in ancient Greece and then the military hospitals in ancient Rome. The Greek temples were dedicated to the sick and infirm but did not look anything like modern hospitals. The Romans did not have dedicated, public hospitals. Public hospitals, per se, did not exist until the Christian period. Towards the end of the 4th century, the "second medical revolution" took place with the founding of the first Christian hospital in the eastern Byzantine Empire by Basil of Caesarea, and within a few decades, such hospitals had become ubiquitous in Byzantine society. The hospital would undergo development and progress throughout Byzantine, medieval European and Islamic societies from the 5th to the 15th century. European exploration brought hospitals to colonies in North America, Africa, and Asia. St Bartholomew's hospital in West Smithfield in London, founded in 1123, is widely considered the oldest functioning hospital today. Originally a charitable institution, currently an NHS hospital it continues to provide free care to Londoners, as it has for 900 years. In contrast, the Mihintale Hospital in Sri Lanka, established in the 9th century is probably the site with the oldest archaeological evidence available for a hospital in the world. Serving monks and the local community, it represents early advancements in healthcare practices.
Early Chinese and Japanese hospitals were established by Western missionaries in the 1800s. In the early modern era care and healing would transition into a secular affair in the West for many hospitals. During World War I and World War II, many military hospitals and hospital innovations were created. Government run hospitals increased in Korea, Japan, China, and the Middle East after World War II. In the late 1900s and 21st century, hospital networks and government health organizations were formed to manage groups of hospitals to control costs and share resources. Many smaller, less efficient hospitals in the West were closed because they could not be sustained.
Antiquity
The earliest documented institutions aiming to provide cures were ancient Egyptian temples. In ancient history, hospitals have been documented in Greece, Rome, the Indian subcontinent, and Persia. In ancient cultures, religion and medicine were linked.
Greece
In ancient Greece, temples dedicated to the healer-god Asclepius, known as Asclepieia (, sing. Asclepieion, ), functioned as centres of medical advice, prognosis, and healing. Asclepeia provided carefully controlled spaces conducive to healing and fulfilled several of the requirements of institutions created for healing. Under his Roman name Æsculapius, he was provided with a temple (291 BCE) on an island in the Tiber in Rome (the Tiber Island), where similar rites were performed.
At these shrines, patients would enter a dream-like state of induced sleep known as enkoimesis () not unlike anesthesia, in which they either received guidance from the deity in a dream. Asclepeia provided carefully controlled spaces conducive to healing and fulfilled several of the requirements of institutions created for healing. In the Asclepieion of Epidaurus, three large marble boards dated to 350 BCE preserve the names, case histories, complaints, and cures of about 70 patients who came to the temple with a problem and shed it there. Some of the surgical cures listed, such as the opening of an abdominal abscess or the removal of traumatic foreign material, are realistic enough to have taken place, but with the patient in a state of enkoimesis induced with the help of soporific substances such as opium. The worship of Asclepius was adopted by the Romans.
The Athenian Navy had a ship named Therapia, and the Roman Navy had a ship named Aesculapius, their names indicating that they may have been hospital ships.
Roman Empire
The Romans constructed buildings called valetudinaria for the care of sick slaves, gladiators, and soldiers around 100 BCE, and many were identified by later archeology. While their existence is considered proven, there is some doubt as to whether they were as widespread as was once thought, as many were identified only according to the layout of building remains, and not by means of surviving records or finds of medical tools.
