hospital

hospital institution for the care of the sick, maintained by private endowment or public funds or both. General hospitals minister to all types of illness, while special hospitals are concerned with only one disease or group of diseases. Many hospitals are maintained solely for the treatment of military personnel and veterans. Once a pesthouse for the care of the indigent and the friendless, with a quality of treatment and nursing from which few emerged alive, the hospital has flourished with the progress of medicine and surgery. Toward the end of the 19th cent. hospital care was revolutionized by the discovery of anesthesia, improvement in sanitation, establishment of hospital nursing schools, and other advances. Hospitals in large cities have become huge medical centers equipped not only to treat the ill but also to further the education of the medical staff, train a nursing staff, perform vital research into the cause and cure of disease, and help the patient with convalescent and social problems.

hospitals. Christian hospitals were founded from the 4th cent. onwards and became numerous in the Middle Ages, when they were commonly associated with monastic orders. Most medieval hospitals in England were almshouses for the aged.

hospital (hist.) hostel, hospice XIII; asylum for the destitute or infirm XV; institution for the care of the sick XVI. — OF. hospital (mod-.hôpital) — medL. hospitāle, sb. use of n. of hospitālis, f. hospit-; see prec. and -AL1.
So hospitality XIV. hospitable XVI. f. medL. hospitāre receive as a guest. hospitaller member of certain charitable religious orders XIV; spiritual officer of a hospital XVI. — OF. hospitalier — medL. hospitālārius.