Apart from the greek temples, historians agree in considering 431 b.C Ceylon as the place of birth of the first hospital. In 1136 in Byzantium the first specialized divisions can be traced. In western Europe they will be followed by the "hospitalia" which were due to the work of different religious knightly orders. They were charitable-assistential places which did not distinguish economic indigence from health needs, they were also places of refreshment for the pilgrims being generally located at the crossroads of the big routes of pilgrimage. In Trieste since 1211 there was the hospice of San Clemente in Muggia, where the Templars had received as a legacy a church with the possibility of hospitalization. In 1314 dubious accusations led to the tragic extinction of the Order. Although the presence of an apothecary was not unusual in the "Hospitia" in medieval times, only with the birth of the new big Renaissance hospitals its presence became a constant rule, enriched today by the scientific specializations of SIFO.​​