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How Did Hospitals Emerge

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The Rise of Early Hospitals
==The Rise of Early Hospitals==
Early hospitals may have had their origins from temple institutions in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. In both these cultures, temples and priests, who also performed healing duties, may have used part of the temple compounds as areas for patients to be healed for a variety of diseases and sicknesses<ref>For more on early temple-based healing and patient care in Egypt and Mesopotamia, see: </ref>. Early surgical practice is also recorded, mostly likely by the 3rd millennium BCE and became more common by the 2nd millennium BCE. In both Egypt and Mesopotamia, doctors like performed surgery dealing with c-section and removal of boils. More complicated surgery may have been practiced; however, the limitation of not having anesthesia and infection would have made surgery at times very dangerous. What these early hospitals, or institutions, indicate is that as cities and urban areas emerged, it was clear that large populations also made it easy for sickness to spread. Hospitals and healing of common diseases, infections and every surgery became a major necessity at the dawn of urbanism. Similar to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, ancient Greece also had gods devoted to healing. The god Asclepius and his cult may have functioned similarly to healing gods and practices in Egypt and Mesopotamia, where the temples could have been used as areas for people to come and receive a form of healthcare, including medicine and surgery in cases.
Among early healthcare facilities, the Achaemenid Persians in the late 6th century and 5th centuries BCE may have established something comparable to a teaching hospital in Egypt and other places. In the Roman period, structures known as <i> valetudinaria </i>, which were likely secular facilities devoted to health care of soldiers, gladiators, slaves, and even potentially others. In the Christian period, by the late 4th century CE, there were edicts to now build dedicated hospitals. This was largely motivated by Christian interests in healing in relation to relgious practices and following New Testament teaching on healing. The hospital in Constantinople and Casesarea in Turkey are among the first known. Little is known about these structures but they likely indicate a type of healthcare facility for the masses.

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