Volume 1

Notes on nursing : what it is, and what it is not / By Florence Nightingale.

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

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on nursing : what it is, and what it is not / By Florence Nightingale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    67/88 (page 63)
    Again, I say, what is the nurse or friend there for except to take note of these things, instead of the patient doing so Again, the question is sometimes put, Is there diarrhoea ? And As lo diar- the answer will be the same, whether it is just merging into_cholera, ^Hoea. w^hether it is a triflhig degree brought on by some trifling indiscre- tion, which will cease the moment the cause is removed, or whether there is no diarrhcEa at all, but simply relaxed bowels. It is useless to multiply instances of this kind. _ As long as observation is, so little cultivated as it is now, I do believe that it is better for the physician not to see the friends of the patient at all. They will oftener mislead him than not. And as often by making the patient out worse as better than he really is. In the case of infants, everything must depend upon the accurate observation of the nurse or mother who has to report. And how seldom is this condition of accuracy fulfilled. A celebrated man, though celebrated only for foolish things, has Means of told us that one of his main objects in the education of his son, was cultivating to give him a ready habit of accurate observation, a certainty of per- sound and ception, and that for this purpose one of his means was a month's ^^^^ obscrva- course as follows:—he took the boy rapidly past a toy-shop; the fiither and son then described to each other as many of the objects as they could, which they had seen in passing the windows, noting them down with pencil and paper, and returning afterwards to verify their own accuracy. The boy always succeeded best, e.g., if the father described 30 objects, the boy did 40, and scarcely ever made a mistake. I have often thought how wise a piece of education this would be for much higher objects ;. and in our calling of nurses the thing itself is essential. For it may safely be said, not that the habit of ready and correct observation will by itself make us useful nurses, but that without it we shall be useless with all our devotion. I have known a nurse in charge of a set of wards who not only carried in her head all the little varieties in the diets which each patient was allowed to fix for himself, but also exactly what each patient had taken during each day. I have known another nurse in charge of one single patient, who took away his meals day after day all but untouched, and never knew it. If you find it helps you to note down such things on a bit of paper, in pencil, by all means do so. I think it more often lames than strengthens the memory and observation. But if you cannot get the habit of observation one way or other, you had better give up the being a nurse, for it is not your calling, however kind and anxious you may be. * It is commonly supposed that the nurse is there to spare the patient from More impor- making physical exertion for himself—I would rather say that she ought to be there tantto spare Id spare him fi-om taking thought for himself. And I am quite sure, that it the the patient patient were spared all thought for himself, aud not spared all physical exertion, thought than lie Afould be infinitely the gainer. The reverse i.s generally the case in the private physical exer* house. In'thc hospital it is the relict Irom all anxiety, afforded by the rules of a tio'n. well-regulated instiluliofi, Aviiich has often auch a beuclicial cllect upon Iho puilent.