ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the paradoxical situation on ‘the Pilgrim-Cancer Patient Metaphor’. The historical analysis is necessary in order to understand the problems raised by the modern hospice movement in the West, because such study reveals the process by which they have been created. In the West, the hospice called a ‘hospitium’ already existed in Rome from the seventh or the eighth century, as a shelter for pilgrims visiting the tomb of St Peter. Different religious foundations from the earliest times sheltered all comers especially Christian travellers and pilgrims and named themselves ‘hospices’. Hospice care survived through political as well as social changes by the effort of religious groups. Thus the terminology of ‘hospice’ is itself an indication of the spiritual underpinning of the movement – an underpinning reinforced at some hospice conferences by prayers at the start of proceedings.
