Volume I Part 36 (2/2)

CHAPTER III

THE FOUNDER OF MODERN NURSING

(1860)

Where is the woland, labouring for the certain benefit of her sex with their ardour, but without their delusion?--SOUTHEY'S _Colloquies_ (1829)

The nineteenth century produced three famous persons in this country who contributed more than any of their conte in disease: Simpson, the introducer of chloroforery; and Florence Nightingale, the founder of reat discoveries completed the beneficent work of the first The third develop as a trained profession--has co-operated powerfully with the other two, and would have been beneficent even if the use of anaesthetics and antiseptics had not been discovered The contribution of Florence Nightingale to the healing art was less original than that of either Sie, it has saved asas either of the other two

The profession of nursing is at once very old and very new; and the place of Miss Nightingale in the history of it has not always been rightly understood Nursing--and even nursing by educated women--is very old ”She herself nursed the unhappy, eer and disease How often have I seen her ounds whose fetid odour prevented every one else fro at the with small and frequent portions of nourishment I know that nance caused by such works of charity I do not judge theues and a clarion voice, I could not enumerate the number of patients for whoe, which is not unlike soale's work during the Crimean War, ritten, nearly fifteen centuries earlier, by St Jero the work of Fabiola, a lady of patrician rank, who in 390 AD built a hospital at Rome, where she devoted herself to the care of the sick Fe is as old as Christianity, and for centuries the religious Orders had sent cultivated women into the hospitals The very na profession in general, recalls its historical origin in religious enthusiash there was ale's service as a war-nurse It was novel in the case of the British Army, but in that of other countries Sisters had already accoinal conception on Miss Nightingale's part that nurses should be trained for their work Her master, Theodor Fliedner, had shown the way in Ger was established in 1840, and the St John's House in 1848, Miss Nightingale's, at St

Thoh not the founder of nursing, Florence Nightingale was the founder ofIt is not always realized how e scale as a distinct and trained calling I have indicated above the three lines of influence--religion, war, and science--along which the developale caive it a vast i to become less abstract, and ale was the St Clara or the St Teresa of the new order, for whom Southey had called She was prepared, by her experience, by the character of her mind, by the drift of her philosophical speculations, not to imitate old forms, but to create a new order, an order of nurses who should, indeed, be devoted to their calling, but should be organized on a secular basis The deeply religious bent of Miss Nightingale's character, the single-h ideals, enabled her to give to (or at any rate to require fro of the devotion possessed by the religious Regulars The Criures, gave further force to athe qualification of nurses It enlisted sentiment in the cause The American Civil War (in which, as we shall hear presently, Miss Nightingale's exareat part) extended the anization may also be considered as an outcoress of science was tending in a like direction

Medicine and surgery were on the eve of receiving great develop advance At the ti at Kaiserswerth, Joseph Lister was a e Cohn, the founder of bacteriology, was only eight years her junior Parkes, one of the founders of iene, was al also should be developed in a scientific spirit, and no one was better qualified than Miss Nightingale to take the lead in such a movement Her experience in the East had filled her with a passionate conviction of the importance of sanitary science She was the centre of a circle of earnest and devotedthemselves to it

She was personally acquainted with eons of the day And there was yet a fourth line upon which Miss Nightingale ht seem to be predestined for this special work What is called the ”woend,”

wrote Miss Nightingale, at the beginning of her pamphlet on Kaiserswerth, ”that the nineteenth century is to be the 'century of women'” At the time when she wrote (1851), the century, she added, had not yet been theirs But there was a spirit stirring the waters Other notable wo for their sex a place in the sun of the world's work Miss Nightingale was not wholly sympathetic to what she called ”woman's missionariness” But the circumstances of her own life, as the First Part of this Me that a wo a walk of life to which she is fitted simply because she is a wo is obviously one Controversy is perennial between those who ascribe the course of political or social history reat men, and those who ascribe it rather to streams of tendency It is less open to controversy to say that the great men who leave the enius conforms to the spirit of their ti such ”greatis to be reckoned

II

In what precise respect, it ? The answer to this question ood deal of conflicting statement I have referred already, in connection with the fettering scruples of Miss Nightingale's parents,[318] to a conflict of evidence upon the morals of hospitals and hospital nurses in the middle of the nineteenth century Her own opinion at that time (and she did not express it without iven in the pamphlet, above mentioned, where she says that hospitals were ”a school, it may almost be said, for immorality and impropriety--inevitable where women of bad character are admitted as nurses, to becoeons We see the nurses drinking, we see the neglect at night owing to their falling asleep”[319] Such statenantly denied by other authorities, equally well qualified to forment

Controversy broke out upon the subject a few years later in connection with the Nightingale Mened hiave in 1857[320] the saiven in 1851 He was answered, and his statements were hotly denied[321]

Obviously there were hospitals and hospitals, and still eneral_ indictment was just on the point ofnurses, both in hospitals and in private service, there is less room for doubt dickens was a caricaturist, but he was an effective caricaturist; and no caricature is effective in its day unless it bears considerable resemblance to the truth In his preface he spoke of Mrs Gamp as a fair representation, at the time _Martin Chuzzleas published, of the hired attendant on the poor; and he rapher, that the rich were no better off, for the original of Mrs Gauished friend of his own a lady, to take charge of an invalid very dear to her”[322] This one can the ht of a remark by Lady Palmerston quoted above[323] ”'Mrs Gamp,' said Mrs Harris, 'if ever there was a sober creetur to be got at eighteen pence a day for working people, and three and six for gentlefolks, you are that inwallable person'” Great ladies clearly thought that such persons existed only, and could only be expected to exist, in the world of iination and of Mrs Harris In 1854, Miss Mary Stanley, or a friend of hers, sent out a circular, very possibly with the knowledge of Miss Nightingale, to various persons connected with hospitals and infirest that nurses should be instructed, on the Kaiserswerth plan, in the art of adious comfort to patients The replies which were subsequently printed[324] throw ht upon the position of nurses at the time ”If I can but obtain a sober set,” wrote a doctor in the North, ”it is as much as I can hope for” ”I enquired for Dr

X,” said another reply, ”about the character of the nurses, and he says they always engage them without any character, as no respectable person would undertake so disagreeable an office He says the duties they have to perform are most unpleasant, and that it is little wonder thatto keep up the sties were 14 to 16 a year It should be remembered, further, that hospital nurses had, as a rule, in the middle of the last century no uniforht for the their meals in the ward kitchens or scullery: ”If the sister happened to be partial to red herrings for breakfast, or onion-stew for dinner, or toasted cheese for supper, the consequent state of the ward ined The assistant nurses had to do all the scrubbing and cleaning of the wards, and to cook for the other nurses and theht is thrown on the slovenliness of the arrangee Hospital when the nursing was taken over in 1856 by trained nurses from St John's House under Miss Mary Jones ”By the end of the day the new-comers, who had arrived in clean and dainty uniforms, were like a set of sweeps or char-wo state of disorder had they found their wards”[326] There were soime (apart froet testified[327]; though it st his reater part of theht” The stoutest defender of the old systeives unconsciously equal support to Sir Ja there is the greatest and happiest contrast of all” Mr South was of opinion that all was for the best, before Miss Nightingale began to interfere, in the best of all possible nursing worlds But his conception of the ideal nurse is this: ”As regards the nurses or ward-maids, these are in much the sa beyond that of poultice-”[328]

[318] Above, p 60

[319] _Kaiserswerth_, p 15

[320] _Times_, April 15, 1857

[321] In a pamphlet by Mr J F South, referred to below, p 445

[322] Forster's _Life of dickens_, vol ii p 30

[323] Above, pp 272-3