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3. From the above it is obvious that even in the dim distant ages
a nursing attendant was a person from whom much was expected and
it is difficult to understand how in later years the profession came to be
thought one only for women of low repute. The most advanced era.
of Hindu medicine was from 250 B.C. to 750 A.D. but after that there
was deterioration and there is from that time onward a tremendous gap,
during which years nothing of note happened. There does not appear
to be any recorded explanation of how the great Hindu civilization met
with the failure of its medical system, but the fact remains that between
800 B. C. and 1000 A. D. India could hold her own with other countries-
in the practice of healing. Public hospitals were abolished from 1000 A.D.,
and the next mention of their establishment occurs in connection with
the needs of the British army in India. The founding of the Madras
General Hospital is an example. On November 10, 1664, the Council of
Fort St. George, wrote to the Agent, Sir Edward Winter: "Fresh
soldiers which came forth this year taking up their habitation in the bleak.
wind in the hall, fell sick. Four of them have died and ten remain at
this time very sick. Soe rather than see Englishmen dropp away like.
doggs in that manner for want of Christian charity towards them, we
have thought it very convenient that they might have an house on pur
pose for them, and people appointed to look after them, and see that
nothing comes into them, neither of meat nor drinke, except what the.
Doctor alloweth."
4.
We do not know anything more of the capabilities of those persons.
appointed as attendants, but the fact that they were carrying out the
Doctors' orders places them in the category of "Nurses".
5.
It is probable that similar provision for the care of sick soldiers
took place in other provinces of India but no facts are known. There
is again a gap of a large number of years until the name of Florence.
Nightingale became known all the world over for her reforms in army
nursing during the Crimean War in 1854. Here it was that Florence
Nightingale, known amongst the men of the British armies in. Turkey as
"The Lady of the Lamp", laid the foundation of modern organised
nursing, as we know it today, for the benefit of the whole world. The
Crimean War has great significance for the people of India since follow
ing closely upon it came the Indian Mutiny. Florence Nightingale never
visited India but during the Mutiny though broken down in health, her
thoughts turned to the needs of the British soldiers and she worked out
reforms which were the means of reducing the mortality rate amongst
the troops from 69 per 1000 to 5 per 1000. The Royal Commission on
Sanitation in India appointed by Lord Stanley in 1859 was the result of -
:Florence Nightingale's insistence and the bulk of the Report was her own
work.
6.
In 1854 a school for the training of midwives was established at the
Lying-in-Hospital, Madras, which formed the nucleus of the training school
established later in the Madras Government General Hospital. The
earlier scheme for training provided that candidates who failed to secure
a diploma in midwifery could be given a sick nursing certificate. This
system proved unsatisfactory and was abandoned in 1871 when the Govern
ment of Madras sanctioned a scheme for the training of 6 nurses in the
Madras General Hospital. Liberal inducements were held out to trained