ANCIENT HOSPITALS

New Zealand Tablet, 23 October 1913, Page 13

ANCIENT HOSPITALS

THE CATHOLIC ORIGIN OF HOSPITAL *., - ._„'-;' charities r ~\ A hospital is ah essentially Christian institution "(writes Dom Martin, Wall in the Catholic, Parish Magazine). The pagans of ancient Greece and Rome had nothing of the kind. In the earliest centuries of Christianity, when the Church was struggling for her life against the power of a hostile State, it was of course impossible for her to found hospitals. . But as soon as the dreaded days of .persecution were over we find evidence of her charitable activity in this respect. The Emperor Julian the Apostate, who came to the throne in the year 361, wrote to the high priest of Galatia directing "him to establish a hospital in each city, to be supported out : of the public revenues. He give's as his reason that he wished to do it out of rivalry to the philanthropic work of the Christians, who cared for the pagans as well as for their own. T At the very time of which we are speaking, St. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, in Cappadocia, established on an enormous scale a hospital in that city. It had buildings for different classes of patients, ' dwellings for doctors and nurses, workshops and industrial schools, all arranged in regular streets. After this hospitals multiplied everywhere in the East. In the single city of Constantinople there were no fewer than 35 of these establishments. They took charge not only of the sick, but also of the poor who were unable to work, of foundlings, of orphans, of the aged, and of poor and infirm pilgrims. The First Foundation of the Kind in the West was at Rome, where Fabiola 'established a hospital to gather in the sick from the streets and to nurse the wretched sufferers wasted with poverty and disease,'

as St. Jerome tells us. 'These institutions increased till in the fifteenth century Rome possessed thirty of them. I Some of these were on a magnificent scale. The Santo Spirito, founded about the , year 1200, had for its principal ward a room 409 feet long and 40 feet wide. In the s Middle Ages it was very largely the monasteries which established and supported hospitals. The famous Benedictine Abbey of Cluny, ', France, set the example.; ' This was in the * tenth century It was not long before -France and:-Germany were covered with hospitals founded by Benedictine and other religious houses. - '■■-::..;'>.: >;:t;: ' , s : * ■.'"'-•■'. ..-■•'. The Work of the Monks. - . Besides this, special religious Orders and confraternities arose whose object was the care of : the sick. The first establishment of this; kind was the hospital of Santa; Maria della Scala at Sienna, founded in the ninth century. It was adorned in the fourteenth century with a splendid set of frescoes. The Order of the Holy. Ghost was established in the twelfth" century, and spread so widely that; in course of time nearly every city "in Europe had a hospital of the Holy Ghost. These institutions were often built on a magnificent scale, as ,may.: ? be; seen from the following description by Dr. Gill. Wylie of, the one at Milan 1 ' In 1456 the Grand Hospital of. Milan was opened. This remarkable building is still in use as a hospital, and contains usually more than 2000 patients. The buildings stand around square yards, the principal 1 one ■ being much larger than the others, and separating the hospital into two parts. The main wards on either side of this large court form a cross, in the centre of which was a cupola, with an altar beneath-it, where divine service is performed daily in sight of the patients. . ""." . The ceilings are thirty -or forty feet high, and the' floors covered with red bricks or flags. The outside wards are nothing but spacious corridors. The wards are first

■ •warmed by open charcoal brasiers. ~;.. . . : This hos- >. - pital, built at the time when the Church of Rome was r at the height of her power, and but a short time before the 'Reformation, is a good example of what had been :-; attained toward the development of hospitals, and it ? shows how much a part of the Church the institution of hospitals was.' - And yet there are Protestants who still, call those times ' the dark ages'! The description just quoted is by a non-Catholic. ■ ■ . Scotland's Ancient Hospitals. ■•:; Scotland possessed 77 hospitals before the Reformation; of these Edinburgh had five, Glasgow two, and Aberdeen four. In England at this period there were 460 of these institutions. Two of the most important of the London ones, St. Bartholomew's and St. •Thomas's, founded some centuries before the Reformation, were confiscated by Henry VIII., but have since been set going again. ; ... • The mediaeval hospitals were served generally by Brothers and Sisters who were bound by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Their dress, food, 'and recreation were all strictly prescribed, as well as their duties. No one employed in the hospital was allowed to take any refreshment or to pass the night outside the hospital, or to go out alone. No distinction of creed or calling was made in the reception of patients. All were welcome: soldiers and citizens, religious and . laymen, Jews and Mohammedans, any who were in poverty and sickness. The hospital attendants were even obliged to go. out at stated times and bring in all the sick and destitute persons to be found. The 'statutes provided that the patients should be treated as masters of the house. The sick were never to be left , •without an attendant; nurses were to be on duty at all hours of the day and night. When the illness became serious the patient was removed to a private room in order to receive special attention. Ventilation and heating were attended to, and baths were provided. All this magnificent charity was more or less ruined, at least in Protestant countries, by the ' Reformation.' In England this result was brought about chiefly by the dissolution of the monasteries. ' Similar spoliations in Germany followed so rapidly on the introduction of the new religion that the Reformers themselves found it '•■■ 'difficult to provide anything like a substitute for the old Catholic foundations. Even Luther, confessed more than once that under the Papacy generous provision had been made for all classes of suffering, while among his own followers no one contributed to the maintenance - 'of the sick and the poor' (Catholic Encyclopedia). With this confession of the chief. Protestant leader we leave the subject.