Volume 3

A history of nursing : from the earliest times to the present day with special reference to the work of the past thirty years / edited, and in part written, by Lavinia L. Dock.

  • Dock, Lavinia L., 1858-1956.
Date:
[1912], ©1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of nursing : from the earliest times to the present day with special reference to the work of the past thirty years / edited, and in part written, by Lavinia L. Dock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the hospital has been laicised or not; he is considered as a non-human being absolutely subject to the needs of the medical students and at the mercy of the attendants; an indecency reigns there to which, because it is constant, all become finally oblivious except the patients, who, constantly changing as they are, are painfully surprised at the way they are treated. Is it necessary to have more money in order to remedy these things? Not at all . . . to introduce truly competent women into hospital wards not only banishes all immorality, but contributes to the prosperity of the hospital, as the English examples show clearly . . . such women, distinguished and essenti- ally professional, are placed between the patients and the physicians; they surround the one with their constant solicitude and their moral protection; they give the others their intelligent help and often facilitate their difficult tasks. ^ The most delicate and difficult problem of all lies in the improtected state of the nurses, whose equip- ment of character is not always equal to self-defence. ^‘The nursing staff is our harem”; said a young interne frankly one time, and in the novel written in 1907 by M. Bru, the Director of Saint Antoine, one of the largest hospitals, called The Romance of a Hospital Nurse, the cold-blooded attitude of the young medico is taken for granted in the bald realism of the sordid tale. It is not evident that the literary director intended pressing any moral, nor does it appear that he is conscious of having brought a damning indictment against the unhindered rule of men over imeducated and undeveloped girls, never- ^ Dans nos Hopitaux. By Dr. Anna Hamilton, in Le Signal, August 16, 1907. VOL. III.—22