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We think of hospitals as being a foundation to modern healthcare systems; however, the emergence of hospitals is not only ancient but it also evolved through a complex history. Hospitals were seen as a way to address healthcare in increasingly urban spaces in the ancient world. In the Medieval and Modern periods, new practices emerged that allowed them to be integrated within educational, government, and private institutions.

==Transformation to Modern Institutions==

By the 18th century, secular hospitals were now found in many parts of Protestant Europe. This further led to the idea that hospitals should be separate from church institutions and doctors were no longer required to also have religious and medical training. During this time in the Age of Enlightenment, the concept of departments or wards within hospitals developed. Patients began to be differentiated between those with acute or less severe symptoms as well as the type of condition they had. Private hospitals, or those funded by independently wealthy individuals, as charities began to appear in major cities such as London. Particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, as healthcare was not always easily accessible to the poor, many wealthy individuals began to take responsibility in building hospitals. This, in effect, was replacing the church as the former patron of hospitals in places where Catholicism had been removed.

Today, many types of hospitals are found, which are funded by government, private donors, or religious institutions. All of these bases of support had their origin from ancient, Medieval, and early modern developments. Specializing has, if anything, increased, where even more specialized departments with hospitals are found. This has increased the levels of training and specialization that doctors are able to learn and focus on as hospitals are now commonly used as educational and healthcare institutions. Teaching and hospitals were first closely linked during the Sassanian and Islamic periods. The teaching of anatomy, clinical practice, and theoretical training or lectures on medical knowledge were already aspects taught in these earlier institutions and that practice developed in Europe by the 17th and 18th centuries. In Europe, the trend was secularization of hospitals that had begun during the Protestant Reformation.

==Related DailyHistory.org Articles==

*[[What was the dominant medical sect in the United States during the 19th Century?]]

*[[Nature's Path: Interview with Susan E. Cayleff]]

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==References==