Quote:
Originally Posted by kindlekitten
has it not occurred to you that people NOT of those classes had the means and help to be cared for at home?
seriously, as a whole hospitals by and large are a fairly modern invention. prior to the last century they were primarily facilities to go and die presumably slightly more comfortably than completely alone with no care at all
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What do soldiers, slaves, and gladiators have in common? They're all property, useful to their masters in some way. There wasn't widespread charity or places of care for the common person.
However, perhaps I was too absolute. How's this: Charity and care for those not useful increased many fold with Christianity. Some of the concepts, like a duty to care for people (on account of them being created in the image of God) even without compensation, were so rare in the pagan world that it may be said that Christians "invented" it.