Public Health Nursing

In addition to these basic principles, many other methods are adopted to fit varying conditions or varying periods of time. These may seem in different localities quite as important as the more fundamental principles universally adopted, and it is only by a careful study of public health work as a whole that we are able to distinguish between the two. It is possible to consider England as well as America in looking for these fundamentals, because a number of them date back to the time when Mr. Rathbone with the farseeing assistance of Miss Nightingale founded the first district nursing association in Liverpool. In the first place Mr. Rathbone felt from the beginning the necessity of the employment of only well-trained nurses, and this at a time when there were none to be had. Each year, as opportunity lays a greater and greater burden of responsibility upon the piiblic health nurse, more emphasis is being placed upon this necessity. The much quoted bishop who thanked God that there were second rate souls to be saved by second rate parsons, has his prototype in many kind hearted men and women who feel somewhat the same way about sickness. Indeed, a noble Lord, when the registration bill was under discussion in England, arose and assured the house that there were two kinds of nurses required, one to nurse the people who had important operations by eminent surgeons, and another to nurse the ordinary ailments of the poor.1 None would be so narrow as to deny ...