26 SEPTEMBER 1874, Page 22

Notes on Surgical Nursing. By J. H. Barnes. (Churchill.)—This invaluable

book is a condensation from a short 'course of lectures delivered at the Training School for Nurses in connection with the Liverpool Workhouse, an institution thus briefly described by Mr. Barnes, the surgeon to the workhouse hospital :—" In the month of May, 1865, for the unpaid pauper women who attended to the sick in the male division of the workhouse hospital, there was substituted a staff of skilled, paid nurses, under the able direction of the late Miss Agnes Elizabeth Jones. The great success that followed this first experiment in workhouse hospital-nursing soon led to the other depart- ments of the hospital being placed under the same conditions ; and now, for some years, they have all been carefully tended by an efficient staff of trained nurses and probationers, under the supervision of a lady-superintendent." In 1866, Dr. Gee, the physician to the hospital, delivered a course of lectures on medical nursing, and Mr. Barnes pre- pared the "Notes," which are among the most valuable and interesting of the practical books on this immensely important subject which have come under our notice. Its contents are admirably arranged, the author's directions are clear, simple, and explained with brevity and reasonableness ; the minutia) of Buffering are taken into account, and the small, deft, ready experiments which give relief are lucidly set forth. Though the " Notes " are specially intended for the use of hospital nurses, and are described by the author as a slight introduction to a systematic study of the science of nursing, they are of such general ap- plication and far-reaching utility, that we hope the book will be widely accepted as a household manual.