I must admit I have been to hospital a couple of times. One occasion was when I had a continuing conversation with the surgeon and I asked him “when are you going to start?” His reply was “I’ve just about finished”.
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I was about to laugh until I realised he was serious. I had woken up a bit early.
Did you know that hospitals were places of merriment? Don’t take my word for it. Just remember the word hospitality.
I thought about that word hospital and merriment. A hospital, in the words of my big dictionary, was originally a place for the entertainment of travellers “and strangers”. The key word was entertainment.
If you were travelling the road to Jerusalem a long, long time ago you could stop over at places run by religious orders along the way. They might try to convert you, but that’s an item for another column.
The early hospitals were a bit like our modern motels, without the cars. They were places where travellers could rest for a while before continuing their journey.
Then, when the word came into our English language it denoted a place for lodging of travellers.
I found an item from 1300 that said “there is nouth an hospital arerd of Seint Thomas”. I think they were lamenting the lack of a hospital, but I could be wrong.
The word comes from Latin, which meant something like “host”. So a hospitale was a place where guests were received. Their welfare was also considered. French took the word as hospital, without the “e”, and in time it came into the English language.
I don’t need to tell you about the Kinghts Hospitaller, but in most cases they were good blokes who looked after the travellers, who were sometimes sick or shouldn’t be out at night.
But as the years wore on, the word hospital changed slightly. Firstly, it became a place for the needy.
Now, travellers go to hospital if they are sick. They go to hotels or motels if they are simply travelling. Sometimes, they get sick in motels and then they go to hospital.
It wasn’t until about the 16th century that the word denoted a place where the sick could go for medical treatment. They say St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London was founded in 1123 by a traveller who had returned from Rome but had become sick along the way.
Dr Rudolph Brasch in his book How Did It Begin describes an early hospital as a “guest house”. The First English Dictionary, of 1604, calls hospitality “good entertainment for friends and strangers”.
These days, hospitals for the most part only look after the sick. But if you should happen to wake up during an operation, try not to laugh.
