Florence

1858 · 65505 — 1858. London: Printed by Harrison and Sons St. Martin's Lane W.C. 1858 8° IV 2 V-X 28 133 1 23 1 pp. 1 plate cloth; Stamp of "Secretary of state War office Library" on title- and flying leaf; minor spotting on title else fine. FIRST EDITION AND EXCEPTIONALLY RARE; FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY "FEMALE NURSING IN MILITARY HOSPITALS 1858" Subsidiary Notes is developed and expanded from the 'tentative and experimental Memorandum' on Female Nurses in Military Hospitals 1857 and really constitutes a treatise on nursing at large. Her much better known Notes on Nursing published two years later was an abridged version of the detailed study which had gone into this earlier privately printed book. Contents Digest pp.v-x Thoughts submitted by order concerning- I. Hospital nurses pp.1-9. II. Nurses in civil hospitals pp.9-14. III. Nurses in Her Majesty's hospitals pp.15-19. Systems of female nursing in the war hospitals of the different nations engaged in the Crimean War pp.19-26. Note in regard to the Russian nurses employed in the war hospitals of the Crimea pp.26-28. Subsidiary notes as to the introduction of female nursing into military hospitals in peace and war pp.1-63. Addenda with regard to female nursing in a military hospital on the pavilion or Lariboisière plan pp.63-90. Addenda as to mixed nursing by nurses and orderlies in military hospitals on the double pavilion or Vincennes plan pp.91-117. Additional hints as to ventilation hospital floors and cautions in ward-building suggested by the Lariboisière Hospital pp.118-127. Note on contagion and infection pp.128-132. Note on observations by the Principal Medical Officer of the army in the East pp.132 133. Thoughts submitted as to an eventual nurses' Provident Fund pp.1-19. Note as to the number of women employed as nurses in Great Britain 2021 pp. Note as to teaching nursing 22 23 pp. "This work developed and expanded from the 'tentative and experimental Memorandum' on Female Nurses in Military Hospitals No. 1 is complementary to Notes on Matters affecting the Health Efficiency and Hospital Administration No. 50 of which it forms the second volume. Its title hardly describes its scope for it is in fact almost a treatise on nursing at large. Mrs. Gaskell in a letter of December 21 1858 wrote: 'It was so interesting I could not leave it. I finished it at one long morning sitting-hardly stirring between breakfast and dinner.' The purpose of the work was to prepare the way for the introduction of women as nurses in military hospitals and to lay down the basic principles of nursing. The subject is considered in great detail from the historical organizational and administrative points of view. Together with much that is outdated it contains a great deal of wisdom and is regarded as one of the most important of Florence Nightingale's writings. It is in this work that she lays down the Draconian code for the regulation of the nurse's life which forms such an extraordinary feature of her teaching. On the other hand it has to be realized that in 1858 the idea of a respectable woman entering a hospital as a nurse was very shocking and Miss Nightingale had to anticipate strong public opposition. 'There is nothing more dangerous than to undervalue the objections of opponents' she wrote. 'Let us give them their full weight and while firmly holding our course and trusting God to guide it draw useful cautions from the objections which we quietly and steadily confront.' Furthermore she firmly asserted in the very first paragraph that it would be desirable 'to consider all plans and rules for some time to come as in a great measure tentative and experimental.' Miss Nightingale although in many respects rigid in her ideas was nevertheless very much aware of the dangers of stagnation which she clearly perceived in later years in the blind adherence to rules of others less able and less original than herself." Sue Goldie A Bio-Bibliography of Florence Nightingale compiled by the late W.-J. Bishop completed by Sue Goldie 1962 Nr. 3 hardcover