Since the dawn of time, care for terminally ill people was considered a challenge, a duty or an obligation. The Latin word hospes meant initially a hospitable person providing shelter and food for those in need. Places where most severely ill people were cared for were called hospitale, hospitium or infirmarium. In ancient Greece and Rome, chronically ill people were placed in special rooms, usually adjacent to temples. Throughout the entire Western Empire, the poor and the ill were cared for by religious congregations. Monasteries ran “hospitable rooms” providing shelter not only for pilgrims, but also for ill people, who could also benefit from simple medical procedures. Numerous pilgrimages, epidemics, wars and crusades, resulted in rapid increase of number of hospitals and shelters in Medieval Europe. Homes of care designed exclusively for the terminally ill appeared in the XIX century. The essence of their mission was compassion for suffering and pain experienced by other people, expressed by will to help, resulting also from religious motives. In the XX century, Cecily Saunders M.D. organized the first St. Christopher Stationary Hospice in London, thereby giving rise to modern hospice organizations. Later, the Hospice expanded its activity on home-based patient care and support of families after loss of the loved ones. In the ‘70s of the XX century, the term “palliative care” has been introduced in the USA and Canada. The Latin word pallium, meaning a large woollen coat, has been adopted to denote protection of patients and their relatives from physical and mental suffering. Nevertheless, definition of palliative care has been developed as late as 1990 and has been published in a WHO document. It specifies the basic mission of this medical specialty: comprehensive and active care for terminally ill people, whose disease does not respond to cause-oriented treatment. Palliative treatment encompasses relief of pain and other ailments, as well as overall support in mental, spiritual and social areas. The essence of palliative care is team work of persons representing various specialties – doctors, nurses, priests, psychologists, physiotherapists, non-medical volunteers, aiming at improving the patients’ quality of life.