Human beings make a society. Healthy human beings make a healthy society. However every society has it share of unhealthy human beings. Illness, disease and invalidity may be a curse for society; but their victims certainly are not. They are as much a part of society as the healthiest of individuals. In the past, an individual affected by a wound or disease was condemned to suffer and fend for himself. In those primitive days, the healthy never assisted or looked after the affected. The practice was to consider such an affected person a spent-force and no longer useful to society. Thus complete isolation from society was the tragic lot of one who fell ill. No attempt was made to ascertain the causes and suggest cures for ailments. The belief, then was that illness was caused either by evil spirits or was a punishment for one's misdeeds. Later, the 'tribe' assumed the responsibility of looking after the sick who were considered victims of a magic spell, by appeasing or scaring away the evil spirits with a counter-curse. Illness creates dependency. The sick need medical treatment, nursing care and shelter. With the advent of the modern society, the institution developed to cater to the needs of the sick was the hospitals