PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
Nurses – We Salute You! The Covid 19 pandemic continues to hold us in its tenacious grasp and we give thanks to our NHS doctors and nurses for being there to care for us (although a salary increase would benefit them more in my opinion) but how often do we stop to think about the history of nursing?
But back to nursing. Pre 16th century the term nurse was generally taken to mean “wet nurse”, that is a woman who breastfeeds the babies of other women. The very word “nurse” actually stems from the Latin word “nutrire”, meaning to suckle. If you needed medical care that couldn’t be provided by your family or the local wise woman (such women later being regarded as “witches” by the church) you took yourself of to the nearest monastery or convent. These religious centres were often funded by the wealthy elite as a way of “buying their way into heaven”. Wealthy families would also offer large dowries for their daughters to become “brides of Christ” and this money would finance a convent’s provision of aid to the poor and sick. The “nursing” care provided to the sick, dying and injured was more akin to religious support than any type of medical provision – but it was doubtless better than nothing at all.
It wasn’t until the middle of the 19th century that nursing began to be recognised as a valued profession, the couple of hundred years in between having relegated nursing to the lowest of domestic services. As medicine became more scientific, with drugs, surgery, etc, it became apparent that a more skilled form of nursing care was required. When Florence Nightingale arrived in the Crimea in 1855 she actually capitalised on that need, rather than creating a new kind of nursing she formalised it, and so “Nightingale Nursing” was developed. A fund set up by members of the public to support Florence’s style of care raised the equivalent in today’s money of £2mill, and upon her return to England she used those funds to establish a training school for nurses at St Thomas’s Hospital, London. Modern nursing, begun by Florence Nightingale and cherished (by the public, at least) today. These articles are researched and written by Laura Billingham, a local content writer and author. Laura moved the Peak District several years ago to pursue her passion for writing. To find out more visit www. landgassociates.co.uk or contact Laura on 07736 351341
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When Henry 8th dissolved the monasteries and moved England to Protestantism most of these early “hospitals” would have been forcibly
closed and the “nursing nuns” sent back to their families. Perhaps they continued their good works, secretly caring for the sick and poor in their community but, likely as not, their families would have been keen to maintain the good grace of the King and have prevented them doing so.
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Florence Nightingale, often cited as being the founder of modern nursing, has a connection with Derbyshire that not many of us are aware of. Her family spent summers at Lea Hurst, Holloway near Matlock. A beautiful house now fully restored to its former glory by Peter Kay (NOT the TV personality) and open as an upmarket bed and breakfast in non-lockdown times.
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