Illustrated lectures on nursing and hygiene / by R. Lawton Roberts.

  • Roberts, R. Lawton.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Illustrated lectures on nursing and hygiene / by R. Lawton Roberts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ledge, and a regular system of work and discipline, over which is a “ trained lady superintendent, who is also matron of the hospital, and who is herself the best nurse in the hospital, the example and leader of her nurses in all that she wishes her nurses to be, in all that training is to make her nurses.” “ A year’s training,” continues Miss Nightingale, “ is simply teaching the nurse her A B C—teaching her how to go on learning for herself, learning to understand her doctor’s orders, and to read her own experience. . . . A nurse without training is like a man who has never learnt his alphabet, who has learnt experience only from his own blunders. Blunders in executing physicians’ or surgeons’ orders upon the living body are hazardous things, and may kill the patient.”1 Now, you must see from all this that the duties you propose to undertake are by no means easy. They are very serious duties, on the proper performance of which hang the lives of the sick you may have charge of. You cannot gain the knowledge of such duties instinctively. Such knowledge is certainly not born with you, nor does it come naturally to you ; but it can be acquired only by devotion and hard work on your part; careful attention to your instructors, and attentive study at the bedside. And if you happily gain some know- ledge of your duties, have you the presence of mind, gentle- ness, accuracy, memory, observation, and forethought,—the six general qualifications without which it is impossible for you to properly carry your duties out,—without which you can never make a “ thorough nurse ” P As to training and instruction in your work, it is absolutely necessary. Remember Miss Nightingale’s words, “ A year’s training is simply teaching the nurse her A B C—teaching her how to go on learning for herself.” In some of our grand training institutions for nurses, such as the large hospitals, no one can obtain a certificate until after two, or, in some instances, three years’ strict training, which includes practical instruction and work in the wards, attendance at lectures, and, finally, a test of knowledge in the form of an examination. It is only by following up such a plan of study as this that a thorough knowledge of nursing can be obtained; and it is therefore the plan which I most strongly recommend to any who think of adopting the “ care of the sick ” as their vocation.2 1 “Training' of Nurses,” in Dr. Quain’s Dictionary of Medicine. * The instruction of Queen’s Nurses (that is to say, the nurses pro-
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