“And remember every nurse should be one who is to be depended upon, in other words, capable of being a ‘confidential’ nurse. She does not know how soon she may find herself placed in such a situation; she must be no gossip, no vain talker; she should never answer questions about her sick except to those who have a right to ask them; she must, I need not say, be strictly sober, and honest; but more than this, she must be a religious and devoted woman; she must have a respect for her own calling because God’s precious gift of life is often literally placed in her hands; she must be a sound and close and quick observer; and she must be a woman of delicate and decent feeling.”
“The everyday management of a large ward let alone of a hospital—the knowing what are the laws of life and death for men and what the laws of health for wards—are not these matters of sufficient importance and difficulty to require learning by experience and careful inquiry, just as much as any other art? They do not come by inspiration to the lady disappointed in love, nor to the poor workhouse drudge hard up for a livelihood.”
“To revert to children. They are much more susceptible than grown people to all noxious influences. They are affected by the same things, but much more quickly and seriously, viz., by want of fresh air, or proper warmth, want of cleanliness, in house clothes, bedding or body, by startling noises, improper food, or want of punctuality; by dulness and by want of light; by too much or too little covering in bed; or when up, by want of the spirit of management generally in those in charge of them. One can therefore, only press the importance, as being yet greater in the case of children, greatest in the case of sick children, of attending to these things.”
The Nightingale Training School For Nurses
Chapter IV.
Deep as was the desire of Miss Nightingale to institute plans for the training of hospital nurses, her health, after her return from the army service, was so impaired, that to undertake the task herself was impossible. The fund of $250,000 had been placed in charge of a board of trustees and invested for the purpose of establishing a school of which she expected to be the superintendent. Her health, however, grew worse rather than better, and after two years had passed, she wrote to the Chairman of the Council of the Nightingale Fund, of her inability to carry out the plans. It became necessary to find other persons through whom she might work, without having to carry the everyday details. Her choice fell on St. Thomas’ Hospital—largely because “the matron of the hospital, Mrs. Wardroper, was a woman after Miss Nightingale’s own heart, strong, devoted to her work, devoid of all self-seeking, full of decision and administrative ability.” Of this remarkable woman, Mrs. Wardroper, who for twenty-seven years was superintendent of the Nightingale School, Miss Nightingale has left a character sketch:
[A]“I saw her,” she says, “first, in October, 1854, when the expedition of nurses was sent to the Crimean war. She had been then nine months matron of the great hospital in London, of which for 33 years, she remained head, and reformer of nursing. Training was then unknown; the only nurse worthy of the name that could be given to the expedition was a ‘Sister’ who had been pensioned some time before and who proved invaluable. I saw her next after the conclusion of the war. She had already made her mark; she had weeded out the inefficient, morally and technically; she had obtained better women as nurses; she had put her finger on some of the most flagrant blots, such as the night nursing, and where she laid her finger, the blot was diminished as far as possible, but no training had yet been thought of.
“Her power of organization, her courage and discrimination in character, were alike remarkable. She was straightforward, true, upright. She was decided. Her judgment of character came by intuition, at a flash, not by much weighing and consideration. Yet she rarely made a mistake, and she would take the greatest pains in her written delineations of character required for record, writing them again and again in order to be perfectly just. She was free from self-consciousness; nothing artificial about her. She did nothing, and abstained from nothing because she was being looked at. Her whole heart and mind were in the work she had undertaken.