Fundamentals of Nursing History
Fundamentals of Nursing History
Fundamentals of Nursing History
EVOLUTION OF NURSING
Period of Intuitive Nursing
(Prehistoric to early Christian era)
Nursing was untaught and instinctive
Performed out of compassion for others and desire to help others
Israel
o Moses was recognized as the Father of Sanitation and
wrote in Old Testament which:
Emphasized the practice of hospitality to strangers
and acts of charity
Promulgated laws of control on the spread of
communicable disease and the ritual of
circumcision of the male child
Referred to nurses as midwives, wet nurses or
childs nurses whose acts were compassionate
and tender
China
o Believed that in using girls clothes for male babies keep
evils away from them
o Prohibited the dissection of dead human body as a
worship to ancestors
o They gave the world knowledge of material medica
(pharmacology)
India
o
Men of medicine built hospitals, practiced an intuitive
form of asepsis and were proficient in the practice of
medicine and surgery
Rome
o The Romans attempted to maintain vigorous health,
because illness was a sign of weakness
o Care of the ill was left to the slaves or Greek
physicians. Both groups were looked upon as inferior
by Roman society.
o Fabiola made her home the first hospital in the
Christian world through the help of Marcella and Paula
Religious taboos and social restrictions influenced nursing at the time of the
Religious Nursing orders
Hospitals were poorly ventilated and the beds were filthy
There was overcrowding of patients: 3 or 4 patients regardless of diagnosis or
whether dead or alive, may have shared one bed.
Practice of environmental sanitation and asepsis were non-existent
Older nuns prayed with and took good care of the sick, while younger nuns
washed soiled linens, usually in the rivers.
St. Catherine of Siena. The first Lady with a Lamp. She was a hospital nurse,
prophetess, researcher and a reformer of society and the church.
In 16th century, hospitals were established for the care of the sick where hospitals
were gloomy, cheerless, airless and unsanitary. People entered hospitals only
under compulsion or as a last resort.
Dark Period of Nursing
(17th to 19th century)
There were no provisions for the sick, no one to care for the sick
Nursing became the work of the least desirable of women---women who took
bribes from patients, who stole the patients food and who used alcohol as a
tranquilizer.
They worked seven days a week slept in cubbyhole near the hospital ward or
patient and ate scraps of food when they could find them.
Period of Educated Nursing
(From June 15, 1869 when Florence Nightingale School of Nursing was opened
until World War II)
The development of nursing during this period was strongly influenced by
trends resulting from wars, from an arousal of social consciousness, from the
emancipation of women and from the increased educational opportunities
offered to women
Popularization of the philosophy of the Nightingale System
o Importance of nursing education
o Hospital affiliation
o Nurses teaching students
o Health teaching as critical responsibility
o Enforced written physician orders
o Expansion in no. of schools to North America
o Specialization developed
Facts about Florence Nightingale
o Recognized as the Mother of Modern Nursing
o Known also as the Lady with a Lamp
o Raised in England and learned languages, literature, mathematics
and social graces
o Developed he self-appointed goal: to change the profile of nursing
o Compiled notes of her visits to hospitals, her observation of the
sanitary facilities and social problems of the places she visited
o Noted the need for preventive medicine and good nursing
o Advocated the care of those afflicted with diseases caused by lack of
hygienic practices
o At age 31, she entered the Deaconess School of Kaiserworth
o Worked as superintendent for Gentlewomen during illness
o Disapproved of the restrictions on admission of patients and
considered this unchristian and incompatible with health care
o Upgraded the practice of nursing and made nursing an honorable
profession for gentlewomen
o Led the nurses that took care of the wounded during the Crimean war
o Put down her ideas in two published books: Notes on Nursing and
Notes on Hospitals
Period of Contemporary Nursing
(Period after World War II up to present)
Scientific and technological developments as well as social changes mark
this period
Establishment of WHO
Use of atomic/nuclear energy for medical diagnosis and treatment
Utilization of computers
Use of sophisticated equipment for diagnosis and therapy
Health is perceived as a fundamental human right
Nursing involvement in community health is greatly intensified
Development of the expanded role of nurses
Professionalization of nursing
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