To the probationer-nurses of the Nightingale Fund School at St. Thomas's Hospital / Florence Nightingale, New Year's Day, 1886.

  • Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910.
Date:
[1886]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: To the probationer-nurses of the Nightingale Fund School at St. Thomas's Hospital / Florence Nightingale, New Year's Day, 1886. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Then comes, too, the intelligent interest in the symptoms and varieties of disease, called, rather grandly, the “ spirit of science.” And still we ask, Does the interest of nursing the sick stop here ? No, indeed ; if we deserve the name of women, a thousand times, No. “ Humanity ” is our “ moral motive,” more even than it is that of men. As one nursing a tedious case once wrote : “ Don’t let ns Nurses look at Patients as merely ‘ cases.’ Let us look at what we can do for them.” [She had been shocked at twice hearing Nurses say of their Patients, ‘ she didn’t care for the “case.” ’] Here comes in our “ humanity,” our devotion to our fellow creatures. And, first and last, last and first, comes “religion.” What is religion ? Some have the religion of ourselves; some of praise—what people will think of us ; some of fear—what they will say of us ; some of making our way in the world, &c. Whatever is the motive power is the religion. None of these motives are absolutely bad. Our work ought to be worthy to command its pay. But true religion is life in its highest form. True religion is to do all that we are doing to the best of our power. Will God say of us', religion was their life ? not