Sick-nursing essentially a woman's mission : being an inaugural lecture on the qualifications for and the conduct of sick-nurses, delivered at the opening of the new school of nursing in Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, on May 1, 1877 / by Dyce Duckworth.

Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sick-nursing essentially a woman's mission : being an inaugural lecture on the qualifications for and the conduct of sick-nurses, delivered at the opening of the new school of nursing in Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, on May 1, 1877 / by Dyce Duckworth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    sympathy, believing, as I do, that this country, at all events, presents no sphere or demand for such services at the hands of your sexd But so exactly is sick-niu^ing a field for female energy, that I regret to find cultivated women expending their powers in a wrong direction, and robbing the ranks of skilled nursing-sisters to form a band of imperfectly trained medical practitioners. My views on this matter are exactly expressed in the following sentence, which was uttered more than twenty years ago by the late Professor Maurice when addressing a ladies’ class: he said, ‘ The more pains we take to call forth and employ the faculties which belong characteristically to each sex, the less will it be intruding upon the province which, not the conventions of the world, but the will of God, has assigned to the other.’ ^ It seems very plain, I think, that women are in- tended to do woman’s work in this world, and not men’s work. Each is supreme in his and her own sphere. Instinct, if nothing else, would teach this. Again, the same distinguished theologian remarked further : ‘ It is the rule, and not the exception, that a woman shoidd have the faculty for nursing whether developed or not; there is no more striking instance of a providential distinction in offices.’^ Professor Maurice knew something of hospital life and sick-nursing, for he was for ten years chaplain to Guy’s Hospital. 1 111 fndia and in many parts of the East, I believe, lady medical prac- titioners may find a large field of usefulness. 2 ‘ Practical Lectures to Ladies.’ Macmillan : 1855. ® Op. cit., p. 15.