The worst type of nurse is vividly pictured
for us by Charles Dickens in _Martin Chuzzlewit_:
"She was a fat old woman, this Mrs Gamp, with a husky voice and a
moist eye, which she had a remarkable power of turning up, and only
showing the white of it. Having very little neck, it cost her some
trouble to look over herself, if one may say so, at those to whom
she talked. She wore a very rusty black gown, rather the worse for
snuff, and a shawl and bonnet to correspond. In these dilapidated
articles of dress she had, on principle, arrayed herself, time out
of mind on such occasions as the present; . . . The face of Mrs
Gamp--the nose in particular--was somewhat red and swollen, and it
was difficult to enjoy her society without becoming conscious of a
smell of spirits."
For a long time, though it had been recognized that the care of the
sick was woman's work, no special training was required from those
undertaking it. Florence Nightingale did away with all such wrong
ideas. In a letter on the subject of training she wrote: "I would
say also to all young ladies who are called to any particular vocation,
qualify yourselves for it, as a man does for his work. Don't think
you can undertake it otherwise. . . . If you are called to man's work,
do not exact a woman's privileges--the privilege of inaccuracy,
of weakness, ye muddle-heads. Submit yourselves to the rules of
business, as men do, by which alone you can make God's business
succeed; for He has never said that He will give His success and His
blessing to inefficiency, to sketchy and unfinished work.
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