Notes on nursing : what it is, and what it is not.

  • Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on nursing : what it is, and what it is not. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material is part of the Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale collection. The original may be consulted at University of California Libraries.

    13/156 (page 7)
    WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT IS NOT, Shall we begin by taking it as a general principle— J^'^arative that all disease, at some period or other of its course, is P^^^cess. more or less a reparative process, not necessarily accom- panied with suffering: an effort of nature to remedy a process of poisoning or of decay, which has taken place weeks, months, sometimes years beforehand, unnoticed, the termination of the disease being then, while the an- tecedent process was going on, determined ? If we accept this as a general principle, we shall be immediately met with anecdotes and instances to prove the contrary. Just so if we were to take, as a principle —all the climates of the earth are meant to be made habitable for man, by the efforts of man—the objection would be immediately raised,—Will the top of Mount Blanc ever be made habitable ? Our answer would be, it will be many thousands of years before we have reached the bottom of Mount Blanc in making the earth healthy. Wait till we have reached the bottom before we discuss the top.