the Emperor Julian, who had previously been among its most bitter opponents, was forced to say, in one of his letters:—
Now we can see what it is that makes these Christians such
powerful enemies of our gods; it is the brotherly love which they
manifest toward strangers and toward the sick and the poor, the
thoughtful manner in which they care for the dead, and the purity
of their own lives.
Moved by these considerations, he decided forthwith to
erect hospitals in all the cities of the empire. We do not
know whether he acted upon this resolution or not, but it
is a matter of record that St. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea
(370-379 A. D.), founded in that city, which is about thirty
miles distant from Jerusalem, a settlement composed of
numerous dwellings that were devoted to the use of the
poor and the sick. This institution was managed in an
admirable manner, a special corps of physicians and nurses
being assigned to the duty of caring for its inmates. At
Edessa, the capital of Northern Mesopotamia, another
hospital was founded in 375 A. D. The date of the establishment
of the celebrated hospital at Djondisabour in
Persia, of which mention is made elsewhere (see page 204
et seq.), is not known. About the middle of the sixth century
of the present era, Childebert I., King of the Franks
and son of Clovis, founded at Lyons, France, the Hôtel-Dieu,
a hospital which has afforded shelter and comfort
to thousands of human beings during the past fourteen
hundred years, and which is in active operation at the
present time; a hospital, too, which has served as a training
school for a long line of distinguished physicians, surgeons
and gynaecologists. It is an interesting fact that Childebert
intrusted the management of this great institution to
laymen (instead of the ecclesiastical powers). Finally,
toward the end of the sixth century, Bishop Masona
founded in Merida, Spain, a hospital in which Jews, slaves
and freemen were received and treated on the same footing;
and he laid down the rule that one-half of the moneys
and other gifts received by the church was to be devoted to
