Judith Godden

Nursing before Nightingale, 1815-1899

Contents: Preface Glossary The new medicine and its dependence on good nursing Hospital nursing in the first part of the century The ward system: a doctor-driven reform Early efforts at training Nursing at the crossroads, part I: ladies and religious sisters in the Crimean war Nursing at the crossroads, part 2: working-class nurses in the Crimean War St Johns House and its mission The St Johns House central nursing system The demise of sisterhood nursing and the central system Conclusion Bibliography Index.

A ‘lamentable failure'? The founding of Nightingale nursing in Australia, 1868–1884∗

Florence Nightingales private assessment was that Lucy Osburn failed in her attempt to found Nightingale nursing in Australia. This assessment is directly at odds with those of historians who have unquestioningly accepted Osburns success. An alternative narrative of the founding of Nightingale nursing in Australia is provided through examining why Nightingale thought Osburn failed. The judgment of failure had little to do with nursing practice or care. Nightingales judgment was based on the personal characteristics she expected of the Nightingale nurse and her fear of public exposure of problems at the Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomass Hospital.

Containment and control: presbyterian women and the missionary impulse in New South Wales, 1891-1914

Abstract This paper focuses on attempts by middle-class, conservative women to maintain control over their sphere of public action. The women had organised in order to support Presbyterian women missionaries. Presbyterian women in the state of New South Wales, Australia, like other church women throughout the world, eagerly supported their mission sisters. The experiences of these women reveal the means by which women were contained and controlled. Both women missionaries and their supporters believed in a conservative, Christian, domestic ideology. However, single women missionaries were able to use that ideology as a means of personal escape from its confines. For their supporters at home, women missionaries came to represent an exciting and purposeful lifestyle. The support the Presbyterian women offered to missionaries can be recounted, in its own terms, as a celebratory narrative. An alternative reading is that the womens very success doomed their efforts at independent, sisterly support of women mi...

Conflict and costs when reforming nursing: the introduction of Nightingale nursing in Australia and Canada

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To examine the financial impact of Nightingale nursing in the mid-19th century; to identify any long-term implications of this financial impact on nursing. BACKGROUND Previous research into the transformation of mid-19th century hospitals has suggested the importance of economic issues. We explore this issue from the perspective of the introduction of trained, Nightingale-style nursing. DESIGN Historical methodology. METHODS We use two examples, in Sydney (Australia) and Montreal (Canada), where there was a distinct break between older-style nursing and implementing of Nightingale nursing. We searched all relevant primary sources for data relating to on-going salary costs and staffing numbers. FINDINGS We found runs of data to demonstrate the huge increase in staff numbers and salary expenses around the time of the introduction of Nightingale nursing at Sydney and Montreal General Hospitals. The one instance of declining costs was at Sydney Hospital during 1873-84. There, the salary expenditure on the bedside nurses fell as nursing probationers (students) undertook the bulk of the nursing. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS The data available for Sydney and Montreal Hospitals supports the argument that Nightingale nursing and the demands of more effective medicine entailed a major jump in hospital costs. Given its expense, it is not surprising that conflict inevitably accompanied the introduction of Nightingale nursing. On the evidence of Sydney, a solution was found in hospital-based training schools with relatively poorly paid probationers. An on-going problem was that these schools functioned to contain nursing costs as much as to provide nursing instruction. IMPLICATIONS FOR CONTEMPORARY POLICY: While further study is needed, the two examples presented here suggest that nursing instruction in the past was a significant solution to the problem of increased hospital costs. An awareness of past solutions to on-going problems may prevent similar sacrifice of nurses in our contemporary hospital crisis.