Religion played an important role in the development of hospitals.

■ Faith healing was practiced in India and Egypt thousands of years ago. Aesculapia (hospital temples) were numerous in ancient Greece and Rome were dedicated to the god of medicine.

■ Hospitals in the early Christian era and in the Middle Ages were an integral part of the church.

■ Not until abuses crept into their administration under ecclesiastical authority in the 15th and 16th centuries were some religious hospitals taken over and managed by civil bodies.