The following notes are by no means intended as a rule of thought by
which nurses can teach themselves to nurse, still less as a manual to
teach nurses to nurse. They are meant simply to give hints for thought
to women who have personal charge of the health of others. Every woman,
or at least almost every woman, in England has, at one time or another
of her life, charge of the personal health of somebody, whether child or
invalid,--in other words, every woman is a nurse. Every day sanitary
knowledge, or the knowledge of nursing, or in other words, of how to put
the constitution in such a state as that it will have no disease, or
that it can recover from disease, takes a higher place. It is recognized
as the knowledge which every one ought to have--distinct from medical
knowledge, which only a profession can have.
If, then, every woman must, at some time or other of her life, become a
nurse, i.e., have charge of somebody's health, how immense and how
valuable would be the produce of her united experience if every woman
would think how to nurse.
I do not pretend to teach her how, I ask her to teach herself, and for
this purpose I venture to give her some hints.