Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-01-18
HISTORY OF NURSING.
MRS. BEDFORD FeNWicK RELATED
SOME INTERESTING FACTS.

From Earliest Ages the Sick Have Been
Cared For by the Kind Hearted-For
Only Thirty Years Has the Art ~ Now
Understood Been Practiced.
Mrs. Bedford Fenwick, whom many
American women will remember pleasant
ly in connection with the British nurses'
exhibit at the fair, says the Chicago Her
ald, has been writing about the history
and the art Of nursing in an English pa
per. She says in part:
It Is only within the last 30 years that
the art OF nursing as we now understand
1t has been taught and practiced upon a
scientific basis, although from the earliest
ages OF which we possess any records the
fact has been recognized that attendance
on the sick and suffering il work dictat-
ed by the noblcst instincts of humanity.
Although the names of celebrated Greek
physicians are handed down to us side by
side with those of their great warriors and
poets, although hospitals built by the
Buddhist kings of Ceylon and Cashmere
existed for hundreds of years before the
birth Of Christ, and Hindoos raised their
'sickhouses" for animals as well as men
centuries before the first Christian zena-
dcchium was founded, it is only within
comparatively modern times that we find
any prominent part assigned to nursing in
public institutions in connection with the
healing art. In fact, it was not until
Christianity became u state religion, and
emperors and kings founded hospitals as
part of the duty inculcated upon them by
their creed, that ladies came publicly for
ward to nurse and feed lepers and beggars,
and knights formed themselves into orders
for the protection of pilgrims in poverty
or illness. After this brotherhoods were
established, such as the Franciscans whose
especial duty was the nursing of the sick
and which still further exemplified the fact
that it was considered beneath the dignity
of the iron man of those days to care for
the weakly and the ailing, and that the
attendance upon such was essentially a
work for the gentle and compassionate. In
the old Scandinavian songs and sagas it
Is the women who wait upon the wounded,
watch the dying and mourn the dead. 1t
was their duty to know all the times and
signs of sickness and to prepare with mys-
FERROUS rites drugs AS well as charms and
love philters.
Then, as time went on, those who de-
voted their lives to the care of the sick be-
gan to band themselves together into COM
munities and sisterhoods, among which
perhaps the most famous were the .Hospi-
tai Sisters of st. Catherine and St. Eliza
beth. In the times of great plaques, when
all fled, we learn that it was these women
who remained steadfast at their posts, dy-
ing among the sufferers whom they had in
charge, faithful to their calling-a noble
example for all future generations of
nurses When, during the crusades, the
terrible scourge of leprosy spread through
out Europe, its victims, rs unhappy out
casts Of society, became the special objects
Of the charity, compassion and self sacri-
flee of the nurses of that day, and in the
lazar houses, which were founded every
where, nurses occupied positions of much
responsibility and authority. When, dur
ing the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
leprosy died out, these empty houses were
converted gradually into general hospitals,
which in many instances long maintained
their original designation, although their
internal organization was slowly altered
to meet their new requirements.
A great impulse was given to nursing
by Pope Innocent Ill, who, at the begin
ming Of the fifteenth century, established
the great Hospital of St. Spirito at Rome,
placing it under the control of Guy de
Montpelier. founder of the Nursing Or
der of the Holy Ghost. Modified as to its
arrangements to meet modern views, it re-
mains to this day a magnificent monument
of the beneficent wisdom of its originator.
The first nursing body bearing distinct
ly secular character were the Sisters Of
Mercy of St. Vincent de Paul. The found
er of that order undoubtedly gave the i'm
pulse to modern nursing when he ordained
that his followers should have "no monas-
teres but the house of the sick, no cells
but hired room, no cloisters but the
streets of the town and the wards of the
hospitals, no Enclosure but obedience and
for convent bars only the fear of God. For
a veil they have holy and perfect mod
esty, and while they keep themselves from
the infection of vice they SOW the seeds of
virtue wherever they turn their steps,"
In England since the downfall of the
monastic institutions nursing has passed
almost entirely out Of the hands of reli-
gious orders, bit abroad, until within the
last generation, it has more or less remain
ed under their control. But everywhere
nursing for more than century seemed
to have lost it's former high ideals and to
nave IApSeu llitO the MINUS VI tuosS p" nv
brought discredit on the calling and often
times danger to the sick. 1t is only with
in our own times that the old feeling has
again arisen that it is woman's privilege
to attend upon the sick; that the profess
sion, SO far from being derogatory, only
calls forth the highest and brightest quail
tiles of womanhood.
1t is difficult to estimate or even faith
fully describe the advances which have
been made during the last go years. Large
and small hospitals have united in giving
definite instruction in the science and art
of nursing to educated gentlewomen,
who in larger and larger numbers every
year have entered the calling. New and
improved methods have been and CONSTANT
liz are being introduced, and the general
level of usefulness and efficiency is steadi-
~ being raised
The next and final development in the
history of nursing must consist in improv-
ed methods of education and of subsequent
employment for nurses. During the tran.
sition period through which we have been
passing in the last few years, immense di-
vers;ty of system rs regards the training
given to their probationers has prevailed
in different hospitals. In some the scien-
tiiic side has been developed highly, in
others the practical side has been chiefly
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