Aerism:
Theory elaborated by the hygienists at the end of the 18th century according to which infected air is the essential factor of morbidity. This theory, according to which air is the main vector of miasmas (substances exhaled by sick bodies and organic matter in putrefaction), is reinforced by contemporary work on respiration. In the 19th century, aerism was turned into a sort of dogma and received involuntary scientific endorsement by Pasteur's work. Taken up by architects, aerism influenced the design of hospitals until the inter-war period. It had fundamental repercussions on architecture in general and town-planning in particular.

Antisepsis:
The entire gamut of procedures aimed at destroying microbes responsible for infecting wounds and at preventing post-operative suppuration. The initial antiseptics, used since the end of the 1860s, were non-specific anti-microbial chemical substances such as phenol or phenol-acid. Specific substances of chemical (sulpha drugs) and biological (antibiotics) origin were developed subsequently.

Asepsis:
The entire gamut of procedures aimed at preventing infectious agents from penetrating surgical areas. The sterilization of surgical instruments and dressing material is done through moist heat or dry heat. Historically, antisepsis preceded asepsis, which spread in the period between 1880-1890 and slowly replaced the former.

Lunatic asylum or psychiatric hospital:
An establishment for taking in and treating patients with mental disorders. In most European countries, establishments of this type were instituted at the beginning of the 19th century. Previously, convents of certain religious orders fulfilled this function of taking in mentally ill persons.

Cloister:
External space - courtyard or garden - in a religious establishment, fully enclosed by buildings whose ground floor is divided by an open gallery. The use of the word cloister is reserved for religious edifices, although this arrangement of a courtyard bordered by open galleries is also found in certain lay buildings.

Gallery:
Internal area that is more long than wide, delineated by walls or the alignment of vertical supports, raised, and used as a passageway. The gallery can be distinguished from the corridor by its width, which is generally that of a room.

Hall (earlier covered market):
Internal area most often divided into naves of equal or very similar heights and sheltering vendor stands in a market. This architectural particularity explains that the word has been used by extension to designate a room divided into naves of an equal height.

Monastic or Conventual Hospital:
A Monastic or Conventual establishment that is directly dependant on a religious order and is used as a hospital with the primary function of taking in and taking care of patients.

Isolation Hospital:
An establishment intended for the hospitalisation of patients with serious contagious diseases presenting an epidemic character (cholera, typhus, yellow fever, small pox, measles, scarlet fever, etc.), except for the plague-stricken for whom there were lazarets.

Multi-specialty Hospital:
In the modern sense, an establishment intended for taking in and treating persons with the most diverse but curable disorders for a limited period of time. It must be kept in mind that until recently, the hospital was reserved for only the needy.

General Hospital:
An institution initially intended for the confinement and correction of some of those living on the fringes of society and considered criminals - beggars and vagabonds, women of a loose characters, etc. - but which soon became a centre for housing and caring for persons unable to provide for themselves, on a temporary basis, such as orphans and abandoned children, or needy old people, invalids and the insane, on a more permanent basis. According to the 1656 edict establishing the Paris General Hospital: "Voulons et ordonnons que les pauvres mendiants valides et invalides de l'un et l'autre sexe soient enfermés dans un hôpital pour être employés aux ouvrages, manufactures et autres travaux, selon leur pouvoir." (We desire and order that poor beggars, both able-bodied and invalid, of either sex, should be confined in a hospital to be employed as workers for structural works, manufacturing and other activities, depending on their ability.) The Poor Law, voted in England in 1601, largely preceded the French royal edict that instituted the creation of a General Hospital in all the cities of the kingdom (1662). This institution also exists in the Netherlands and in Italy.

Military Hospital:
An establishment intended especially for taking in and treating ill soldiers or sailors, for a limited period of time, even if it is not directly dependent on the military administration (Army or Navy).

Hospice:
An establishment intended to take in and look after old poor people, persons with incurable diseases, the disabled and incapacitated, as well as orphans and abandoned children. The 7 August 1851 Act (concerning the organization of hospital aid) confirmed the distinction between a health-care institution (hospital) and a welfare institution (hospice) by devoting a separate article to each of them.

Hygiene:
All behaviour directed at maintaining good health, and collective practices and measures for reducing the incidence of diseases (in accordance with the sanitary conceptions of the period considered).

Infirmary:
Part of an establishment, consisting of a building or a simple room, for the purposes of fulfilling a hospital function, i.e. taking in and taking care of persons suffering in principle from relatively benign ailments. The initial infirmaries were created in the major European monasteries since the early Middle Ages. We later saw them appear in institutions harbouring a somewhat sizeable population: colleges, barracks, prisons, vagrants home, hospices, etc.

Lazaret:
An institution generally located close to a major population cluster, originally intended to isolate the plague-stricken so as to prevent the epidemic from spreading to the city. The first institution of this kind was founded in the 14th century on the Notre-Dame de Nazareth Island next to Venice. Since the beginning of the 19th century, lazarets were set up especially next to ports in order to quarantine crews, passengers and goods off suspect ships.

Lazar-house or leper-house:
An institution placed away from population clusters, intended for keeping those affected by leprosy or measles together so as to isolate them permanently from the rest of the population. The lazar-house, generally dedicated to St. Lazarus, exclusively designates a medieval establishment, while the term leper-house is still in current use.

Pavilion hospital:
Relates to an edifice or plot of land whose architectural units, houses or buildings are in the form of a pavilion, i.e. a building or a main building with a block plan. By extension, the term describes an edifice consisting of independent buildings (completely isolated or linked to each other through open galleries), irrespective of the layout.

Ward:
A room in a hospital or infirmary, generally long in shape (extremely rare cases of circular wards may also exist), with several dozen beds for patients on both sides of one or several alleys. The word dormitory applies to a room with less than ten beds, the term room is used when there are less than four beds.

Sanatorium:
Hospital directed at treating people affected by consumptive problems or TB patients. It is often called a Home or Curative Institution. The sanatorium or "préventorium" - a French specificity - is an institution for persons suspected to be suffering from latent TB. However, in Italy, there is an institution that is more or less identical in its aim but whose name does not indicate its function, since it is called a "colonia de vacanze" or resident camp.

Nave:
Internal area demarcated by walls or alignments of vertical supports, going right up to the roof level (or several levels) of a building.