Hospital Reformation and Redirection

By 1850, half a century of declining funds for hospitals left the institutional care of the infirmed insufficient for most people. Though the Civil War fueled many needed reforms, there were still issues of funding, support, and causation of illness. With the sanitation movement came the change in sanitation of hospitals and the growing realization that some health and wellness conditions required long term, specialized care, such as tuberculosis and insanity. Hospital reformation intersected with movements in hygiene, and with the acceptance of germs and specific pathogens.