††A hospital is a building where sick and injured people can be treated. Both the ancient Egyptians and the Greeks had healing centres. A public hospital was also established in Rome in 362 AD.
In medieval Europe the only medical treatment available was in hospital wings attached to monasteries. In the 13th century one such hospital wing in Paris crammed six people into a bed. In England, the squalid conditions found in most hospitals improved in the 19th century with the reforms pioneered by Florence Nightingale. New hospitals were built, nurses were properly trained and efficient antiseptics and anaesthetics began to be used.
