Notes on nursing : what it is, and what it is not.

  • Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on nursing : what it is, and what it is not. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material is part of the Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale collection. The original may be consulted at University of California Libraries.

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    observing nurse does not do; she neither physics herself nor others. And to cultivate in things pertaining to health observation and expe- rience in v^'omen who are mothers, governesses or nurses, is just the way to do away with amateur physicking, and if the doctors did but know it, to make the nurses obedient to them,—helps to them instead of hindrances. Such education in women would indeed diminish the doctor's work—but no one really believes that doctors wish that there should be more illness, in order to have more work. What patho- (2.) It is often said by women, that they cannot know anything of logy teaches, the laws of health, or what to do to preserve their children's health, What obser- because they can know nothing of '^ Pathology, or cannot dissect, teaches^ ^What —^ confusion of ideas which it is hard to attempt to disentangle, medicine does. Pathology teaches the harm that disease has done. But it teaches What nature nothing more. We know nothing of the principle ol* health, the alone does. positive of which pathology is the negative, except from observation and experience. And nothing but observation and experience will teach us the ways to maintain or to bring back the state of health. It is often thought that medicine is the curative process. It is no such thing ; medicine is the surgery of functions, as surgery proper is that of limbs and organs. Neither can do anything but remove obstruc- tions ; neither can cure ; nature alone cures. tSurgery removes the paratively harmless an-orient pill. The ladj came to me and complained that it did not suit her half so well. If women will take or give physic, by far the safest plan is to send for The doctor every time—for I have known ladies who both gave and took physic, who would not take the pains to learn the names of the commonest medicines, and confounded, e. g., colocynth with colchicum. This is playing with sharp edged tools with a vengeance. There are excellent women who will write to London to their physician that there is much sickness in their neighbourhood in the country, and ask for some prescription from him, which they used to like themselves, and then give it to all their friends and to all their poorer neighbours who will take it. Now, instead of giving medicine, of which you cannot possibly know the exact and proper ap- plication, nor all its consequences, would it not he belter if you were to persuade and help your poorer neighbours to remove the dung-hill from before the door, to put in a window which opens, or an Arnott's ventilator, or to cleanse and lime-wash the cottages ] Of these things the benefits are sure. The benefits of the inexpe- rienced administration of medicines are by no means so sure. Homoeopathy has introduced one essential amelioration in the practice of physic by amateur females ; for its rules are excellent, its physicking compara- tively harmless—the ''globule is the one grain of folly which appears to be neces- sary to make any good thing acceptable. Let then women, if they will give medi- cine, give homoeopathic medicine. It won't do any harm. An almost universal error among women is the supposition that everybody must have the bowels opened once in every twenty-four iiours or must fly imme- diately to aperients. The reverse is the conclusion of experience, ' This is a doctors subject, and I will not enter more into it; but will simply repeat, do not go on taking or giving to your children your abominable courses of aperients, without calling in the doctor. It is very seldom indeed, that by choosing your diet, you cannot regulate your own bowels; and every woman may watch herself to know what kind diet will do this; I have known deficiency of meat produce constipation, quite as often as deficiency of vegetables; baker's bread much ofteuer than either. Home made brown bread will oltener cure it than anythmg else.