Sygehistorie

Sygehistorie, or hospital history, is the study of the development of hospitals and hospital care from antiquity to the present. It examines how institutions for curing and sheltering the sick emerged, how they were organized, financed, and governed, and how medical practice, nursing, and patient experience changed over time. The field also explores hospital architecture, staffing, public health policy, and the interaction between hospitals and wider society.

Origins and medieval developments encompass ancient infirmaries and temple-based care in civilizations such as Greece and Rome, followed by early Christian and Islamic institutions. In medieval Europe, hospitaller houses and monastic infirmaries played a central role in caring for the poor and pilgrims, gradually expanding into more formal facilities with regulated rules and charitable funding. By the late Middle Ages, hospitals began to resemble organized institutions that combined care with education and even research in some centers.

The early modern period saw continuities in charitable provision alongside rising secular governance and urbanization. In the 17th to 19th centuries, hospital architecture and administration reacted to population growth, warfare, and new medical ideas. The advent of germ theory, anesthesia, antisepsis, and professional nursing in the 19th century spurred modernization, specialization, and the creation of national health systems and hospital networks.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, hospitals became central to public health, medical education, and technology-driven care. Trends include deinstitutionalization in some settings, shifts toward outpatient services, advances in information systems, and a focus on patient safety and quality improvement. Sygehistorie thus links medical science with social policy, architecture, and organizational change to illuminate how hospital care has evolved.