660 



NURSES, TRAINED. 



substituted for the brutality and incompetence 

 of former years, it is the purpose of this article 

 to set forth. 



The record of professional nurses prior to 

 the modern movement is not in all respects so 

 gloomy as would appear from Dr. Lusk's brief 

 reference to his own experience. There were 

 in almost every town, certainly in every large 

 city, a few men and women who were worthy 

 of their honorable calling, but they were very 

 few, and their services were so constantly in 

 demand that no physician could count with 

 certainty upon being able to secure them when 

 required. In the great hospitals such nurses 

 were almost unknown, save where the Roman 

 Catholic Sisterhoods were employed ; and so 

 desperate were the straits in which hospital- 

 surgeons often found themselves, that the au- 

 thorities were more than once implored to in- 

 voke the aid of the Catholic Church to effect 

 a reform. Such a measure, however, seemed 

 undesirable from a political standpoint, and it 

 was to private enterprise and liberality that 

 success was at last due. 



To this day on the Continent of Europe the 

 religious orders hold almost a monopoly of 

 nursing, a system which has its disadvantages 

 as well as its advantages, even in so-called 

 Catholic countries, and which would not at all 

 meet the requirements of England and Ameri- 

 ca. In Paris there are about six hundred Sis- 

 ters who in the various hospitals superintend 

 the regular hired attendants. These Sisters, 

 while actuated by earnest religious zeal, are 

 still subject to the orders of their ecclesiasti- 

 cal superiors rather than those of the hospital 

 staff, and they have not, as a general thing, 

 received any regular professional training. In 

 Germany some progress had been made fifty 

 years ago, and it was in the " Institute of Dea- 

 conesses" at Kaiserswerth, in 1836, that Flor- 

 ence Nightingale finished her early studies and 

 fitted herself for the noble work in the Crimea 

 that made her name immortal and inaugurated 

 the present English system. That war, indeed, 

 was instrumental in giving skilled nurses to 

 the Russians as well as to the allies ; for, soon 

 after peace was declared, an order of Sisters of 

 Mercy was created, which has become a benefi- 

 cent institution throughout the empire. In 

 Germany, too, there are many Sisters of Char- 

 ity who are constantly engaged in services for 

 the sick; and the great "Kaiserin Augusta Hos- 

 pital " at Berlin devotes an important branch 

 of its equipment to lectures on nursing for the 

 benefit of all who care to attend. In Prussia 

 the " Albert-Verein " was established under 

 royal patronage at Dresden, whence, after an 

 exacting two years' course, the pupils go to 

 Leipsic for a third year. These nurses are pen- 

 sioned, if permanently injured by their pro- 

 fessional work. When on duty they are paid 

 from 12 to 24 marks a month, and when sent 

 out by the directorate to nurse in private fami- 

 lies they receive 3 to 4 marks a day, and are 

 sent to nurse the poor gratuitously. 



In England systematic attempts to train 

 nurses began soon after Miss Nightingale's 

 services in the Crimea had demonstrated the 

 advantages of such training, and Mrs. Elizabeth 

 Fry was one of the first to teach nurses at Guy's 

 Hospital. At present there are training-schools 

 connected with nearly all the principal hospitals 

 in the large cities, and for twenty years there 

 has been one in successful operation at the Syd- 

 ney Infirmary in New South Wales. 



In the United States, so far as is known, 

 Dr. Valentine Seaman, of the New York 

 Hospital, was the first to give systematic in- 

 struction. His course consisted of twenty-six 

 lectures on midwifery, including the kindred 

 branches of anatomy, physiology, and the care 

 of children. These'lectures were published in 

 New York in the year 1800. In 1838 the So- 

 ciety of Friends opened a " Nurse Society " in 

 Philadelphia ; and a few years afterward the 

 Philadelphia Lying-in Charity established a 

 special course of instruction. Up to this time 

 the Catholic Sisterhoods had afforded the only 

 instances of really organized work in this di- 

 rection ; but in 1853 St. Luke's Hospital was 

 founded in New York city, and its nurses were 

 then, and have been ever since, furnished by 

 the k< Protestant Episcopal Order of the Holy 

 Communion." The Lutheran churches, too, 

 were among the pioneers in securing stated in- 

 struction for nurses. 



In America, as elsewhere throughout the 

 world, war has done more to create a class of 

 trained nurses than all other forces combined. 

 The necessity of organization, of discipline, of 

 regular and systematic methods, under the 

 most trying circumstances, taught us the su- 

 perior value of professional services. Under 

 the Sanitary Commission during the civil war 

 some two thousand nurses from the Lutheran 

 societies above referred to were employed, 

 besides many others who volunteered from all 

 over the Northern States. When the war 

 ended, a nucleus was formed out of which has 

 sprung the present admirable system, with its 

 beneficent promise of increasing usefulness. 



The new order of things was not inaugu- 

 rated without much opposition. Many phy- 

 sicians believed that the little knowledge of 

 medicine and surgery that must of necessity 

 be acquired in any training-school would prove 

 to be a dangerous thing. They seem to have 

 thought that blind obedience, with perhaps a 

 touch of ignorant superstition, would insure 

 better service than the semi-professional equip- 

 ment ordinarily attainable for most nurses. 

 That there was some foundation for their ap- 

 prehensions will probably be admitted by every 

 one who is at all familiar with the personal 

 differences of opinion that are apt to prevail 

 even among full-fledged members of the medi- 

 cal profession. It is inevitable that the spheres 

 of nurse and doctor should sometimes clash, 

 but the quarrels will be mainly due to indi- 

 vidual peculiarities rather than to any radical 

 fault in the schools, and experience has already 



