 In the major hospitals at Cairo, Baghdad, and Damascus, students could visit patients often with the supervision of a practicing physician, in a system that is comparable to that of medical residents today.The greatest contribution of the Islamic hospitals was the structure itself and how it functioned in Islamic culture.The first documented general hospital (hospitals that treated a multitude of pathologies, including mental illness) arose in Baghdad, in 805, built by vizier to the caliph, Harun al-Rashid.