title: From almshouse to hospital: the shaping of Philadelphia General Hospital.
abstract: After almost 250 years, one of the nation's first, and most illustrious, hospitals closed. Its demise was a particularly dramatic but representative symptom of a more general decay in the quality of public medicine in America's older cities. The gradual differentiation of municipal welfare mechanisms from almshouse to hospital is traced; it has been an elusive and incomplete evolution.
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006773:Hospitals, Municipal / Q000266:history*; D006779:Hospitals, Public / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D008489:Medical Indigency; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital / Q000266:history; D010414:Pennsylvania; D011203:Poverty; D011634:Public Health; D012962:Sociology, Medical