Report of the Royal Commission on the practice of subjecting live animals to experiments for scientific purposes : with minutes and evidence and appendix / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of her Majesty.
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on Vivisection (1875)
- Date:
- 1876
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of the Royal Commission on the practice of subjecting live animals to experiments for scientific purposes : with minutes and evidence and appendix / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of her Majesty. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
1040/1052 (page 610)
![incomparably difficult post—a gentlewoman, to cope with various authorities without eithev feeling or inspiring jealously ; it need hardly be said, to devote her whole time to the work. Three months' systematic training in District Nursing, under this lady's active superintendence, can scarcely jbe thought too much for the District Probationer Nurse who has passed through her year's Hospital Training. We will suppose the Nurse then appointed to a District. For at least one month more, should not the District Superintendent go with the new District Nurse every day her rounds to induct her into her duties ? This may be impossible, even if the District Superintendent is appointed to no larger an area than she can really superintend. [We suppose this to be Totvn District Nursing.] Then how to supplement her ? What is the best organisation for District Nursing ? 1. The Distiict Lady Superintendent to make her Head Quarters in the Training School, which we suppose to be in the Hospital, where lives the Training Lady Superintendent, who is the head of all and Matron of the Hospital. [If the Training School and Hospital is not in a central position, still this is more than compensated by the District Superintendent being thus in daily communication with the Head, the Hospital Superintendent, to whom she should also report in writing, say once a week.] 2. The District Superintendent to reside occasionally at each of the small District Homes, to be spoken of immediately. 3. Of coui'se to report to a Committee and Secretary, but as a Committee, on the cases, (fee, nursed by the District Nurses. (There are multitudes of internal points, in managing women Mdiich can only be reported to a woman.) ■i. Nurses to be trained, selected, appointed, paid, and dismissed by the Hospital Lady Superintendent (Matron). It is of vital importance that she should be in constant relation with the District Supei'intendent, who is in fact her District Assistant. [There is, I believe, in every one of the few instances where Town District Nursing- has been organised on a large scale, a ' Lady Visitor ' ; but she is in hardly any sense what is described above. How is it possible that the payment and continuance or dischai'ge of the District Nurse by the Hospital Superintendent be anything but a mere name without responsibility ? How can it be known—not so much whether gross things are going on—that is, whether Distiict Nurses are drinking or falling into immoral habits (these would almost certainly be detected and punished with dismissal)—as whether the District Nurses are nursing or not, in any real sense of the word, if the Visitor does not visit, and the Superintendent does not superintend ? That is— (1.) If the Visiting Superintendent is not a first-rate Trained Nurse. (2.) And if her whole time is not devoted to her overwhelming duty. (3.)* And if she is. not in real and continuous official and unofficial relation with her Head, and the real Head and Trainer of the Nurses, the Hospital Lady- Superintendent.] 5. Have not District Nurses a constant tendency to degenerate into mere Visiting- Agents of their local Superintendent Ladies, perhaps giving only beef-tea, and an hour a day ? To avoid this, ought there not to be a system of tickets or checks, or what the French call Bons ; the Nurse to give a ' Bon' for what nourishment, &;c., she finds wanted, or for bedding, fee, on the Matron of District Home, soon to be mentioned, where is or ought to he the sick kitchen, so that the Nurse may nurse, and not give ? 6. Are District Nurses Nurses to Doctors, in any sense of the word Indeed, are there any real directions given by Doctor to Nurse for the care and treatment of the District patients, except perhaps in cases of fevers and operations, when the Doctor sends for his District Nurse f In other cases, for any practical carrying out of Doctors' orders, might not the Doctor as well be at New York, or the local Superintendent Lady be Doctor ? Has not the Nurse to run af tei- the Doctor, instead of the Doctor sending fer the Nurse ? Even when there is a Doctor in attendance, doos he leave directions on a slate, or otherwise, for the Nurse ? or does he make it possible for her to meet him by appointment at the Patient's bed-side ? To keep a constant viligant guard, that this inevitable evil does not become the ruling custou:. must be the anxious duty of the District Superintendent. For is not District Nuising sometimes a failure, on account of want of connection with the Doctor ? 7. Do](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b23983334_1064.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
