title: [From temples and sanctuaries to hospitals; 6,000 years of history].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To find out when and where the hospitals began, its history and evolution.
  
  
  METHODS
  Review of books and Journals of personal and Instituto Nacional de la Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, libraries about history of medicine and surgery.
  
  
  RESULTS
  During the last 5000 years the history of man has been full of events, the beginning and development of hospitals has been one of them. Everything started in Sumeria in 3500 bC, some changes were developed in Egypt, Greece and Rome. In the 4th century aD the first true hospitals are opened. Since then the hospitals had improved until now.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The sick man has been looking for the healing of his ailments, and few places made him feel protected as the hospital does. The birth, growing and evolution of such institutions had been slow and steady until the end of the second millennium aD.
authors.affiliation: Instituto Nacional de la Nutrición Salvador Zubirán. lgarzav@quetzal.innsz.mx
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: de la Garza Villaseñor
mesh_terms: D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D049691:History, Medieval; D006761:Hospitals / Q000266:history*