Citations de Notes on Nursing

“Every woman, or at least almost every woman, in England has, at one time or another of her life, charge of the personal health of somebody, whether child or invalid,--in other words, every woman is a nurse.”

“I know an intelligent humane house surgeon who makes a practice of keeping the ward windows open. The physicians and surgeons invariably close them while going their rounds; and the house surgeon very properly as invariably opens them whenever the doctors have turned their backs.”

“The extraordinary confusion between cold and ventilation, even in the minds of well educated people, illustrates this. To make a room cold is by no means necessarily to ventilate it. Nor is it at all necessary, in order to ventilate a room, to chill it.”

“Always air your room, then, from the outside air, if possible. Windows are made to open; doors are made to shut--a truth which seems extremely difficult of apprehension.”

“But were a trustworthy woman in charge of the ward, or set of wards, the thing would not, in all certainty, have happened. In other words, it does not happen where a trustworthy woman is really in charge.”

“Variety of form and brilliancy of colour in the objects presented to patients are actual means of recovery.”

“One of the greatest observers of human things (not physiological), says, in another language, “Where there is sun there is thought.” All physiology goes to confirm this. Where is the shady side of deep vallies, there is cretinism.”

“Death and disease are like the workhouse, they take from the same family, the same house, or in other words, the same conditions. Why will we not observe what they are?”

“It is often thought that medicine is the curative process. It is no such thing; medicine is the surgery of functions, as surgery proper is that of limbs and organs. Neither can do anything but remove obstructions; neither can cure; nature alone cures.”

“Oh, leave these jargons, and go your way straight to God’s work, in simplicity and singleness of heart.”