hospitalism

[hos-pi-tl-iz-uhm]

noun

1. hospital conditions having an adverse effect on patients.

2. the adverse mental and physical effects caused by such conditions.

3. the physiological and psychological consequences of living in a hospital, nursing home, etc.

Word History and Origins

Origin of hospitalism¹

First recorded in 1865–70; hospital + -ism

Example Sentences

A fear of hospitalism, along with the horrifying specter in St. Louis, helped scare the medical profession off the use of life-saving incubators for years, Raffel writes.

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The term hospitalism has been applied to this disease by Erichsen and Sir James Y. Simpson, and the former remarks that "the term py�mia is used in a very wide and elastic manner, and by many is made to include various forms of blood-poisoning."

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Severe types and complications of varicella are in general limited to the little patients who are recognized as suffering from hospitalism.

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The demise of snuggle antagonism grew out of the work of a few renegade doctors who noticed that isolated foundlings often wasted away—a condition called "hospitalism"—but could sometimes be brought back from the brink by a nurse's loving affection.

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Although there was much criticism, his conclusions were scarcely called in question at all; trifling holes were picked in his statistics, but his contentions were universally acknowledged to be correct; a few reformers only, persuaded as he was of the evils of hospitalism and working at the subject, lent him their advocacy.

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