25,466 were returned, at the census of 1851, as nurses by profession,
39,139 nurses in domestic service,[1] and 2,822 midwives. The numbers of
different ages are shown in table A, and in table B their distribution
over Great Britain.
To increase the efficiency of this class, and to make as many of them as
possible the disciples of the true doctrines of health, would be a great
national work.
For there the material exists, and will be used for nursing, whether the
real "conclusion of the matter" be to nurse or to poison the sick. A
man, who stands perhaps at the head of our medical profession, once said
to me, I send a nurse into a private family to nurse the sick, but I
know that it is only to do them harm.
Now a nurse means any person in charge of the personal health of
another. And, in the preceding notes, the term _nurse_ is used
indiscriminately for amateur and professional nurses. For, besides
nurses of the sick and nurses of children, the numbers of whom are here
given, there are friends or relations who take temporary charge of a
sick person, there are mothers of families. It appears as if these
unprofessional nurses were just as much in want of knowledge of the laws
of health as professional ones.
Then there are the schoolmistresses of all national and other schools
throughout the kingdom. How many of children's epidemics originate in
these! Then the proportion of girls in these schools, who become
mothers or members among the 64,600 nurses recorded above, or
schoolmistresses in their turn. If the laws of health, as far as regards
fresh air, cleanliness, light, &c., were taught to these, would this not
prevent some children being killed, some evil being perpetuated? On
women we must depend, first and last, for personal and household
hygiene--for preventing the race from degenerating in as far as these
things are concerned. Would not the true way of infusing the art of
preserving its own health into the human race be to teach the female
part of it in schools and hospitals, both by practical teaching and by
simple experiments, in as far as these illustrate what may be called the
theory of it?
[1] A curious fact will be shown by Table A, viz., that 18,122 out of
39,139, or nearly one-half of all the nurses, in domestic service, are
between 5 and 20 years of age.