check out wikipedia, but i think hospitals go as far back as the greek empire...definitely by the roman empire hospitals were a part of the landscape.
after all, hippocrates was the man...
In ancient cultures religion and medicine were linked. The earliest known institutions aiming to provide cure were Egyptian temples. Greek temples dedicated to the healer-god Asclepius might admit the sick, who would wait for guidance from the god in a dream. The Romans adopted his worship. Under his Roman name Æsculapius, he was provided with a temple (291 BC) on an island in the Tiber in Rome, where similar rites were performed.
Sinhalese (Sri Lankans) are perhaps responsible for introducing the concept of dedicated Hospitals to the world. According to the Mahavamsa, the ancient chronicle of Sinhalese royalty written in the 6th century AC, King Pandukabhaya (4th century BC) had lying-in-homes and hospitals (Sivikasotthi-Sala) built in various parts of the country after having fortified his capital at Anuradhapura. This is the earliest literary evidence we have of the concept of dedicated hospitals anywhere in the world.
Prof. Arjuna Aluvihare ("Rohal Kramaya Lovata Dhayadha Kale Sri Lankikayo" Vidhusara Science Magazine, Nov. 1993) contends that there is no evidence, literary or otherwise, to show that hospitals were known elsewhere before and during the time of King Pandukabhaya. Heinz E Muller-Dietz (Historia Hospitalium 1975) describes Mihintale Hospital as being perhaps the oldest in the world.
Some institutions created specifically to care for the sick appeared in India. Brahmanic institutions were established in India, King Ashoka founded 18 such institutions c. 230 BC. The care was not full and only the rich were treated, though they are notable for being the earliest hospiials to treat animals.
The first teaching hospital, however, where students were authorized to methodically practice on patients under the supervision of physicians as part of their education, was the Academy of Gundishapur in the Persian Empire. Some experts even claim that "to a very large extent, the credit for the whole hospital system must be given to Persia". (A medical history of Persia, C. Elgood, Cambridge Univ. Press, p. 173.)
The Romans created valetudinaria for the care of sick slaves, gladiators and soldiers around 100 BC. The adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the empire drove an expansion of the provision of care, but not just for the sick. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. urged the Church to provide for the poor, sick, widows and strangers. It ordered the construction of a hospital in every cathedral town. Among the earliest were those built by the physician Saint Sampson in Constantinople and by Basil, bishop of Caesarea. The latter was attached to a monastery and provided lodgings for poor and travelers, as well as treating the sick and infirm. There was a separate section for lepers.
Medieval hospitals in Europe followed a similar pattern. They were religious communities, with care provided by monks and nuns. (An old French term for hospital is hôtel-Dieu, "hostel of God.") Some were attached to monasteries. Others were independent and had their own endowments, usually of property, which provided income for their support. Some were multi-function. Others were founded specifically as leper hospitals, or as refuges for the poor or for pilgrims. Not all cared for the sick.
Meanwhile Muslim hospitals developed a high standard of care between the eighth and twelfth centuries A.D. Hospitals built in Baghdad in the ninth and tenth centuries employed up to twenty-five staff physicians and had separate wards for different conditions and lead to the modern hospital. State-supported hospitals also appeared in China later during the first millennium A.D.
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Modern era
In Europe the medieval concept of Christian care evolved during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries into a secular one, but it was in the eighteenth century that the modern hospital began to appear, serving only medical needs and staffed with physicians and surgeons. The Charité (founded in Berlin in 1710) is an early example.
Hospicio Cabañas was the largest hospital in colonial America.Guy's Hospital was founded in London in 1724 from a bequest by wealthy merchant Thomas Guy. Other hospitals sprang up in London and other British cities over the century, many paid for by private subscriptions. In the British American colonies the Pennsylvania General Hospital was chartered in Philadelphia in 1751, after £2,000 from private subscription was matched by funds from the Assembly.
When the Viennese General Hospital (Allgemeines Krankenhaus) opened in 1784 (instantly becoming the world's largest hospital), physicians acquired a new facility that gradually developed into the most important research center. During the 19th century, the “Second Viennese Medical School” emerged with the contributions of physicians such as Karl Rokitansky, Josef Skoda, Ferdinand von Hebra and Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis. Basic medical science expanded and specialization advanced. Furthermore, the first dermatology, eye, as well as ear, nose and throat clinics in the world were founded in Vienna - it was the birth of specialized medicine.
By the mid-nineteenth century most of Europe and the United States had established a variety of public and private hospital systems. In Continental Europe the new hospitals were generally built and run from public funds. In the UK the giant State-run National Health Service, founded in 1948 and one of the world's five largest employers, dominates the hospital sector.
In the United States the traditional hospital is a non-profit hospital, usually sponsored by a religious denomination. One of the earliest of these "almshouses" in what would become the United States was started by William Penn in Philadelphia in 1713. These hospitals are tax-exempt due to their charitable purpose, but provide only a minimum of charitable medical care. They are supplemented by large public hospitals in major cities and research hospitals often affiliated with a medical school.