Florence Nightingale an important woman in History of Nursing

 

 Florence Nightingale is one of the most important women in nursing history. The history and story behind Florence Nightingale is a primary source since it gives an opportunity to relive in imagination for us now how life was for people at that time, especially for women and healthcare. Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy in May of 1820. She was very close to her father William who was a wealthy landowner, Unitarian, Whig, and was also involved in anti-slavery movement. Due to their close relationship and lack of a son, her father took upon her education and taught Florence Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, history, philosophy and mathematics. At a young age Florence stated she felt the call of God to some unnamed great cause. Her mother Fanny primary concern was to find her a good husband yet Florence refused to marry.

At the age of 25 she expressed the desire to become a nurse and her parents both were opposed since at that time nursing was associated with the working class women and Florence was in a category higher than that.

Illustrated London News (24^th February, 1855)

Florence inspiration came from meeting Elizabeth Blackwell at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London; she was the first woman to be a Doctor in the United States. Her father agreed to support her decision to study and she went to study in Kaiserweth, Germany. Within two years she was nominated as resident Lady Superintendent of Harley Street in London a hospital for invalid women. Once the Crimean War started in 1853, Nightingale saw it as an opportunity to serve the man and volunteered along with other nurses to Turkey but was limited to cleaning and servicing the injured only as the physician saw fit. The British army men were dying of Cholera and Malaria. Nightingale started cleaning the area were the soldiers were since it was filthy and she felt cleanliness was important to health, she started documenting and charting information on decrease of death from infections and wounds and presented a document. As a result of the detrimental conditions in the hospital in Scutari where she was stationed, Nightingale began a campaign to improve the quality of military hospitals once she came back from England. In 1856 Nightingale had an interview with Queen Victoria  to share the afflictions the military hospitals suffered and also so that she could gain support for nursing education, health reform and the importance of having a proper space for education. The year after she provided evidence to the Sanitary Commission and eventually resulted in the formation of the Army Medical College.

Attached is the link for an online movie regarding the importance Florence Nightingale provided for the improvement of healthcare and nursing. She is seen as a revolutionary in this field and a heroine of the times due to the difficulty women encountered then by planning to practice outside the home and being anything else other than wife’s. The primary source is the actual story of Florence along with some pictures or drawings taken at the time.

There is also a movie made by PBS about Florence’s life and effort to reform healthcare which I also believe it to be a primary source. The authors of these primary sources attempt to enlighten us with information about the beginnings of healthcare and how our nation learned and benefited from learning and sharing of information especially at a time where were pandemics were rampant in battlefields and no knowledge of how to control it was available.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCh99ZPBApU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVAkJoR_lk0&feature=related

This website has the direct link to the life of Florence Nightingale and it’s a vivid primary source of her life and the life of that era. It helps reflect on the changes that were taking place and how people coped with them. The thoughts Florence had for healthcare reform is still the basis for many health reforms even now.

Florence Nightingale Receiving the Wounded at Scutari — 1856 — The Mission of Mercy by Jerry Barrett.                    

This picture on the left is a primary source of the story of Florence Nightingale depicts a nickname that was given to her by the soldiers as the lady with the lamp because she would be the only one allowed checking on the ill after dark, she was incessant in her duty to care and improve the life of the wounded men. 

The story of Florence has been a foundtion for my career up to this point I now understand and value the possibilities of nursing and the respect that comes along with it, learning from this sources that nursing in the past was considered work of protitutes it has come a long way from that and without the information provided to us via the writtings she left it would have been imposible to know her story and the emphasis of those who were willing to dig more into history to learn and portray the difficulties and sucesses that came aobut with the work of people from the past. I hope you enjoy these information and although is of much value to me because of my interest I hope it provides a little glimpse of the importance our health care now. 

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REnightingale.htm

http://www.victorianweb.org/history/crimea/florrie.html

Martha Ballard Diary...A Midwife's Tale

 Martha Ballard

This is one of the pages from Martha Ballard’s diary from 1785. This diary is an important piece of history in relation to nursing. Martha Ballard was a midwife who assisted not only on the delivery of children since there were no hospitals or as many doctors that would attend the delivery of a child. One of the factors that her diary provides is the names of the people she assisted and the successes on her deliveries. The diary accounts also for advances in healthcare.

Attached is a link to an online version of the diary in which it talks about daily routine activities she had in her days while caring for others and also as well as the weather so we are able to picture a day in her life. The online episodes of the diary, talks about an episode and time in which doctors started using medication opium to be exact in the form of drops; during the deliveries. The diary says the medication put the patients in a “stupor” and did not allow them to push and be participants in the delivery. The story also describes situations in which patients had been harmed by the use of the medications. These episodes upset the midwifes a lot especially Martha Ballard in this case since she would be dismissed once the doctor would arrive and receive no payment but also upset because she felt confident to be able to deliver the children without medication and harm to the child or the mother which at that time was hard to do.

The diary is also a tool of reference for the changes that have come about in our healthcare situation, it clearly describes that doctors were many times trained by the midwifes for the deliveries, they were savvy in theory but not on actual hands on situations and they learned from the midwifes.  The diary documents the “worse epidemic in Massachusetts, Oxford, in which diphtheria ran through the town” according to the diary Martha writes that on August 13 of 1769 the epidemic started in the town, she herself lost three of her daughters within the first few weeks of the epidemic and she was pregnant with a child at the time. They moved from Massachusetts during the American Revolution to the front lines of Maine.

With this document being a primary source of history especially in the area of medicine since documentation was very difficult to pass or to find this diary has been a very efficient and helpful way of referring to an era in which America was growing and many changes were occurring. The story about Matha's ordeal has now been made into a movie and there are many books that have been created from it. As secondary sources we can now benefit from the information and learn from it and enjoy from the material in it. Learning about the many changes this country has gone through with its strugles in health and how much we have grown and evolve yet we are still so much dependent on this type of information to keep learning. I hope you all enjoy this information as much as I did.

Here is the link also for a website in which you can see actual copies of the diary and the difficulty with which they were read, and transcribed.

Diary of Martha Ballard

A midwife's tale the movie

Here are a few more pictures of that diary but you can see more in the links above:

Healthcare and Nursing History

Healthcare and Nursing

Our healthcare system has grown incredibly from the provision of care in the home by self taught physicians. Pennsylvania Hospital was founded in 1751 (Deborah Judd, Kathleen Sitzman, 2010) it was the first hospital in the United States

PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL __FIRST IN USA

The second one was New York Hospital in 1791

During this period these were the only 2 hospitals in America and they were managed in the same way British Hospitals were.

The period between 1600 and 1800 was one in which many changes occurred around the world many of them having to do with healthcare. There was William Harvey who discovered blood circulation, Anton Van Leeuwenhoek who discovered protozoa, bacteria and human protozoa in 1632-1723. (Judd, 2010).

Before hospitals were built the place were the ill were cared for were known as "Almhouses"  and most of this homes were for the poor people. The women who served as nurses were mostly illiterate only a few could read materials on how to care for the sick.

Nursing history came along with those changes, in the 1700’s nurses were women who were self taught, many with experience on taking care of family members and helping with deliveries. Many people during that time would call on the “nurse” because it would be less costly. Care of the paitents would occur in the home before the hospitals were founded.

Nurses would travel to see patients and would remain at the bedside taking care of the ill many times.

                According to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich from the book Major Problems in the History of American Medicine and Public Health (2001) there are records of nursing journals one of which was from Martha Ballard a Midwifery nurse at the time kept a diary in which there is information which has helped form a picture of the life and work of a nurse in the 1790’s.

Mrs. Ballard’s diary depicts nursing as if she were treating family members and midwifery was treated as naturally as possible and resented the use of Laudanum to ease the woman’s pain during delivery (John H. Warner, p. 74).
I believe these pictures were taken at the time so that others can learn from it, since the pictures depict history and what was happening at the time. These pictures there are taken by different photographers and used in the books about the history of nursing.  The pictures themselves have been recorded in the books in a neutral manner so that the viewer can make its own opinion of them.

Deborah Judd, Kathleen Sitzman, & Megan G. Davis. A History of American Nursing Trends and Eras. Sdbury: Jones and Bartlett Publisher, LLC, 2010.

John Harley Warner, & Janet A. Tighe. Major Problems in the History of American Medicine and Public health. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001.

Earthquake preparedness

Have you ever thought what you would do in case there is an emergency? Are you prepared for it in case an earthquake happens or there is a flood in your neighborhood, perhaps not even a natural disaster but a personal one? I know, none of us prefer to think about it because it can be Karma right?, we may attract it to happen. The truth is we all need to think about it because once you have thought about it and created a plan even if is a mental plan it is easier to get into action. Here is your chance!

The USGS has set up a practice simulation scheduled for October 21, 2010. It is called the Great California Shake Out! They are inviting people to be part of the largest earthquake drill in California and they need your participation. 

This site will allow you to regeister and get prepared. It also lists the participating businesses, schools and hospitals that you may be familiar with in your area and participate through them.

This is a great way to do a practice run in case of emergency and preapare for what can be inevitable according to the USGS and many of our local news channels, not to mention the small shakes we have occasionally some of which we feel and note others we don't even realize.

see attached link for participation: http://www.shakeout.org/register/