Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/484

480 appearance came the university—so long, in fact, that the statement that the origin of the hospital owed much, if anything, to science is disproved chronologically. And this, too, without in the least minimizing the influence of the great medieval schools, such as Salerno and Montpellier, upon the hospitals of the middle ages.

But now to consider in brief detail the hospitals of early Christian era. We must first give our attention to the east, where the conversion of Constantine gave an impetus to the spread of Christian religion. Ratsinger asserts that a hospital was established at Constantinople by St. Zoticus during the reign of the first Christian emperor, but his authority for this statement is mythical. We have, however, documentary proof in the writings of St. Gregory, of Nazianus—whose brother; by the way, was a physician—of the establishment of a hospital by St. Basil at Cæsarea, in Cappadocia (A.D. 369).

According to Gregory, it was a veritable city with streets separating pavilions for various diseases and also workshops, industrial schools, convalescent homes and residences for attendants, nurses and physicians.

Indeed, the plan seems not unlike our most modern pavilion system; the ancient writer waxes enthusiastic in his praise of it, declaring it to be "a heaven upon earth."

Alexandria boasted a hospital in 610, founded by St. John the Almsgiver, and at about this same time Bishop Brassianus established one at Ephesus. Contemporaneous was the foundation in Constantinople of three hospitals, one by St. John Chrysostom, one by St. Pulcheria, sister of the Emperor Theodosius II., and one by St. Sampson. Thirtyfive hospitals were erected in this one eastern city alone before the tenth century, according to the Constantinopolis Christiana of Du Cange. An orphanotrophium was established in the tenth century by Alexis I., and the Hospital of the Forty Martyrs by Isum II. in the eleventh century. Such was the influence of these Eastern institutions that we find their Greek terminology influencing the names of early institutions of the west. In all the writings of later days concerning hospitals a house for sick people is called a "noscomium," for foundlings a "orphanotrophium," etc. Perhaps one of the best proofs we have of the activity of the Christians in hospital building is the fact that the Emperor Julian, called the Apostate, decreed that hospitals should be built to offset the influence of similar institutions which the Christians had inaugurated.

St. Jerome tells us of the hospital builded by Fabiola in Eome during the fifth century. Fabiola, a wealthy Roman lady, is probably our first Christian philanthropist. Pope Symmachus (495-514) built