Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1884

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (1820-1910) Notes on nursing: what it is, and what it is not. Harrison [1860] [1st ed., 2nd issue]. 79 pp. 21.6 cm.

Few can fail to agree that Florence Nightingale is "the greatest figure in the history of nursing" (Garrison-Morton 1612). She was trained in France, Germany, and Egypt, and after nursing experience in England she was asked to take charge of a group of nurses being dispatched to the Crimea to care for the British wounded in the war. Her heroic efforts brought the morality rate among the soldiers there from 42 percent to 2 percent. The rest of her life was spent in the struggle to improve the care of patients and to establish nursing as a profession. This no-nonsense book is not only a call for the establishment of training of nurses; it offers the most practical advice on the care of patients. Nursing, she says, "has been limited to signify little more than the administration of medicines and the application of poultices. It ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet, and the proper selection and administration of diet." Although this book is undated and its publication is often ascribed to 1859, it was probably not actually available to the public until 1860. The present issue is sometimes called the first issue, but as a few copies exist in which no advertisements appear on the end papers and in which a statement concerning translation rights (carried in later issues on the title page) does not appear, this must be accorded place as the second issue, before correction of several typographical errors in the text.

Cited references: Cushing N98; Garrison-Morton 1612; Osler 7737; Waller 6872 (dated 1858, but certainly erroneous)

Gift of John Martin, M.D.