A HISTORY OF NURSING.
A History of Nursing. By M. Adelaide Nutting and Lavinia L. Dock. 2 vols. (G. P. Putnam's Sons. 21s. net.)—It may seem ungracious to complain of the magnitude of a book which deals with a subject so important, and on which so much labour has been spent. But "the Evolution of Nursing from the Earliest Times," to quote from the sub-title, is really too large an under- taking. It is scarcely less formidable an undertaking, even for the reader, of whom we are naturally thinking, than would be the evolution of medicine. It is, of course, a great thing to know about the rude surgery of prehistoric man, about Hippocrates, Dioscorides, and Galen, about Paracelsus and mediaeval theories. For practical purposes most people have to be content with a review of the medical systems and theories which influence the practice of the present time. So it is with nursing. There are questions of the greatest importance that concern the antiquity of the practice, and the authors have examined them with unsparing industry ; but it is when they reach their second volume, when they come to the story of Kaiserwerth, to pre. Nightingale times, to the work of Miss Sellon and others, and then to the crisis of the Crimean War, when Miss Nightingale herself, with her incomparable genius, came upon the scene, it is then that the interest of the story becomes absorbing. It was in the melancholy winter of 1854-55 that the art of nursing, as we know it now, came into being. The story is admirably told. We could wish that every woman who is likely to be called to such duties—and who is not ?—should read it. If we have been critical of the widely extended scope of the work, it is because this desirable end may be rendered less likely of attainment.
Previous page
