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London: Printed by Harrison and Sons, St. Martin's Lane, W.C., 1858, 8°, IV [2] V-X, 28, 133 [1], 23 [1] pp., 1 plate, cloth; Stamp of "Secretary of state War office Library" on title- and flying leaf; minor spotting on title, else fine. FIRST EDITION AND EXCEPTIONALLY RARE; FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY "FEMALE NURSING IN MILITARY HOSPITALS 1858" Subsidiary Notes is developed and expanded from the 'tentative and experimental Memorandum' on Female Nurses in Military Hospitals (1857), and really constitutes a treatise on nursing at large. Her much better known Notes on Nursing, published two years later, was an abridged version of the detailed study which had gone into this earlier, privately printed book. Contents Digest pp.v-x Thoughts submitted by order, concerning- I. Hospital nurses pp.1-9. II. Nurses in civil hospitals pp.9-14. III. Nurses in Her Majesty's hospitals pp.15-19. Systems of female nursing in the war hospitals of the different nations engaged in the Crimean War pp.19-26. Note in regard to the Russian nurses employed in the war hospitals of the Crimea pp.26-28. Subsidiary notes as to the introduction of female nursing into military hospitals in peace and war pp.1-63. Addenda with regard to female nursing in a military hospital on the pavilion or Lariboisière plan pp.63-90. Addenda as to mixed nursing, by nurses and orderlies, in military hospitals, on the double pavilion or Vincennes plan pp.91-117. Additional hints as to ventilation, hospital floors, and cautions in ward-building suggested by the Lariboisière Hospital pp.118-127. Note on contagion and infection pp.128-132. Note on observations by the Principal Medical Officer of the army in the East pp.132, 133. Thoughts submitted as to an eventual nurses' Provident Fund pp.1-19. Note as to the number of women employed as nurses in Great Britain 20,21 pp. Note as to teaching nursing 22, 23 pp. "This work, developed and expanded from the 'tentative and experimental Memorandum' on Female Nurses in Military Hospitals (No. 1), is complementary to Notes on Matters affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration (No. 50), of which it forms the second volume. Its title hardly describes its scope, for it is in fact almost a treatise on nursing at large. Mrs. Gaskell, in a letter of December 21, 1858, wrote: 'It was so interesting I could not leave it. I finished it at one long morning sitting-hardly stirring between breakfast and dinner.' The purpose of the work was to prepare the way for the introduction of women as nurses in military hospitals, and to lay down the basic principles of nursing. The subject is considered in great detail from the historical, organizational and administrative points of view. Together with much that is outdated, it contains a great deal of wisdom and is regarded as one of the most important of Florence Nightingale's writings. It is in this work that she lays down the Draconian code for the regulation of the nurse's life, which forms such an extraordinary feature of her teaching. On the other hand, it has to be realized that in 1858 the idea of a respectable woman entering a hospital as a nurse was very shocking, and Miss Nightingale had to anticipate strong public opposition. 'There is nothing more dangerous than to undervalue the objections of opponents,' she wrote. 'Let us give them their full weight, and while firmly holding our course, and trusting God to guide it, draw useful cautions from the objections which we quietly and steadily confront.' Furthermore, she firmly asserted, in the very first paragraph, that it would be desirable 'to consider all plans and rules, for some time to come, as in a great measure tentative and experimental.' Miss Nightingale, although in many respects rigid in her ideas, was nevertheless very much aware of the dangers of stagnation, which she clearly perceived in later years in the blind adherence to rules of others less able and less .
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