Science is justly proud of allowing people to live longer and of being able to relieve some of their suffering. Modern therapeutic technologies of transplants, invasive procedures and medical engineering achieve successes that only a few decades ago were unthinkable. Few physicians today make house calls. Patients are routinely examined and treated during office visits or in hospitals equipped with computers, radiation labs and the other sprawling arsenal of modern medicine. While doctors all too often become absorbed with the technology and chemistry of healing, it's up to the nursing profession in its widest sense to provide human warmth for patients, allay their anxieties, supervise their treatment and help them cope with the miseries of being ill.
Good nursing is an important part of any therapy.
Midwives and people who would sit up with ailing persons could be hired in all epochs and cultures. Now the mounting demand for geriatrical care presents new challenges. There are also modern horror stories of Mrs. Gamps in so-called rest homes. Florence Nightingale, the British hospital superintendent who organized and headed a unit of field nurses during the Crimean War in 1854 is considered the pioneer of modern sick care. After another war, Henri Dunant of Geneva, who witnessed the appalling butchery of the Battle of Solferino between Austrian and the allied Piedmontese-French forces in 1859, founded the Red Cross movement.