Notes on hospitals / by Florence Nightingale.

  • Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on hospitals / by Florence Nightingale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    thoroughly ventilated, the sick could not by any means be made speedily to recover. The effect of light on health and disease has been long recognised in the medical profession as may be learned from the writings of Sir Andrew Wylie, Dr. Milne-Edwards, and Mr. Ward. Dark barrack-rooms, and barrack-rooms with northern aspects, will furnish a larger amount of sickness than light and sunny rooms. Among kindred effects of light I may mention, from experience, as quite perceptible in promoting recovery, the being able to see out of a window, instead of looking against a dead wall; the bright colours of flowers ; the being able to read in bed by the light of a window close to the bed-head. It is generally said that the effect is upon the mind. Perhaps so; but it is no less so upon the body on that account. All hospital buildings in this climate should be erected so that as great a surface as possible should receive direct sun- light—a rule which has been observed in several of our best hospitals, but, I am sorry to say, passed over in some of those most recently constructed. Window-blinds can always moderate the light of a light ward ; but the gloom of a dark ward is irremediable. The axis of a ward should be as nearly as possible north and south ; the windows on both sides, so that the sun shall shine in (from the time he rises till the time he sets) at one side or the other. There should be a window to at least every two beds, as is the case now in our best hospitals. Some foreign hospitals, in countries where the light is far more intense than in England, give one window to every bed. The window-space should be one-third of the wall-space. The windows should reach from two or three feet of the floor to one foot of the ceiling. The escape of heat may be diminished by plate or double glass. But while we can gene- c a