This book attempts to fill an existing gap in the history of modern medicine by examining Central European hospitals. It does not subscribe to the “big bang theory” of the sudden rise of the modern hospital. Instead, it traces the (micro-)history of the municipal, university, and church hospitals, as well as the provincial institutions for the mentally ill. It raises the question of how authorities, burghers, physicians, patients, and staff dismantled caregiving premises and promoted the establishment of modern healthcare infrastructures while Central Europe was still widely associated with menacing plague and cholera epidemics.

Contributors are: Zdeněk Nebřenský, Ludwig Pelzl, Ingrid Kušniráková, Ivana Horbec, Eva Hajdinová, Daniela Tinková, Pavlína Pončíková, Janka Kovács, Martynas Jakulis, Piotr Franaszek, and Barbora Rambousková.