Nurse: one of the world's most impactful professions
A hospital in every town
A central tenet of early Christianity was something called "practical charity," which primarily involved tending to the sick, elderly, and impoverished. It became a priority of the Christian leadership to establish a hospital in every city, town, and village of Roman Europe.
Nursing in the Middle Ages
The spread of Catholicism throughout Europe developed in tandem with the spread of hospitals and nursing. Almost all hospitals were run by monks and nuns, who took healthcare upon themselves as a holy charitable practice. Many hospitals were attached to monasteries, while others functioned independently. The inextricable link between Christianity and nursing is aptly expressed in the old French word for hospital, hôtel-Dieu, or "hostel of God."
Estate nurses
Some places in Western Europe, such as France and Italy, remained staunchly Catholic during the Protestant Reformation. In these regions, nurses continued to work, but the number of available healthcare professionals dropped drastically. Many nurses who once worked in hospitals became "estate nurses."
