Hospital and Asylum
The history of medicine can never be understood without its buildings and its interior. A physical venue is needed to create a healing place for the injured and sick and for medicine to advance. In cinema, hospitals resemble block-like structures loaded with technology. To obtain a better perspective of how hospitals are portrayed in film, this chapter reviews the historical development of the hospital and the history of asylums as places of confinement for patients with mental illness. More than a few films paint hospitals and psychiatric institutions as understaffed with disrespect from top to bottom in the professional hierarchy. This chapter reviews the depiction of hospital wards and psychiatry wards in fictional and documentary film.