Social and Health Care of Children in Central Europe

The Italian Hospital in Prague in the 17th-18th Century

Abstract

The history of the Italian Hospital in Prague from the end of the 16th to the end of the 18th century is a notable example of the formalisation, professionalisation and medicalisation of care for children: from the provision of a refuge for the most helpless members of society (abandoned newborns and orphans) who were completely bereft of the protection of the family, to progressively organisationally and professionally improving care offered by a lay religious congregation, to the ever more stringent supervision and finally the complete transfer of the social-health institution created in this way (a foundling hospital and maternity hospital) into a sphere entirely controlled by the authorities of the “State” (Bohemian provincial health institutions) and the “Academy” (the Medical Faculty in Prague).