Notes on nursing : what it is, and what it is not.

  • Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on nursing : what it is, and what it is not. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material is part of the Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale collection. The original may be consulted at University of California Libraries.

    12/88 (page 8)
    To this one can answer witli more certainty than to the former objections. Who is it who knows when the wind is in the east ? Not the Highland drover, certainly, exposed to the east wind, but the young lady who is worn out with the want of exposure to fresh air, to sunlight, &c. Put the latter under as good sanitary circum- stances as the former, and she too will not know when the wind is in the east. I. VENTILATION AND WAEMINO. First rule of The very first canon of nursing, the first and the last thing upon nursing, to which a nurse's attention must be fixed, the first essential to the within as^pure P^^^^^^' without which all the rest you can do for him is as nothing, as the air ^^^^ which I had almost said you may leave all the rest alone, is this: without. To KEEP THE AIE HE BREATHES AS PURE AS THE EXTERNAL AIR, WITHOUT CHILLING HIM. Yet what is SO little attended to ? Even where it is thought of at all, the most extraordinary misconceptions reign about it. Even in admitting air into the patient's room or ward, few people ever think, where that air comes from. It may come from a corridor into which other wards are ventilated, from a hall, always unaired, always fall of the fumes of gas, dinner, of various kinds of mustiness ; from an underground kitchen, sink, washhouse, water-closet, or even, as I myself have had sorrowful experience, from open sewers loaded with filth ; and with this the patient's room or ward is aired, as it is called—poisoned, it should rather be said. Always air from the air without, and that, too, through those windows, through which the air comes freshest. Erom a closed court, especially if the wind do not blow that way, air may come as stagnant as any from a hall or corridor. Again, a thing I have often seen both in private houses and insti- tutions. A room remains uninhabited; the fire place is carefully fastened up with a board ; the windows are never opened ; probably the shutters are kept always shut; perhaps some kind of stores are kept in the room ; no breath of fresh air can by possibility enter into that room, nor any ray of sun. The air is as stagnant, musty, and corrupt as it can by possibility be made. It is quite ripe to breed small-pox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, or anything else you please.* Yet the nursery, ward, or sick room adjoining will positively be aired (?) by having the door opened into that room. Or children will be put into that room, without previous preparation, to sleep. A short time ago a man walked into a back-kitchen in Queen Why are unin- * ^^^ common idea as to uninhabited rooms is, that they may safely be left habited rooms ^^^^ doors, windows, shutters, and chimney board, all closed—hermetically sealed shut up 1 ^^ possible—to keep out the dust, it is said ; and that no harm will happen if the room is but opened a short hour before the inmates are put in. I have often been asked the question for uninhabited rooms—But when ought the windows to be opened ] The answer is—When ought they to be shut]