Nightingale on Nursing (Option 1)

Here I continue to further investigate the Nightingale collection that I have been focusing on since he beginning of our archival studies at the Lilly Library. While I am looking at a relatively limited number of materials, still find this collection in particular extremely fascinating in that each phase of the project has allowed me to look for and analyze new information. In doing so, I have found myself most drawn to her shrt handbook, Notes on Nursing. Specifically, the introductory or overview chapter provides a great deal of insight into the purpose and function of the text. I love that Nightingale approaches the subject of nursing so matter-of-factly. She wastes no time jumpling in and explaining that the intention of her work is to improve the field of nursing by shedding light onto the art of it.

From her other texts, we know that Nightingale feels it is a civic duty, of sorts, belonging to her, to improve the general public's knowledge and application of nursing. She believes that personal/individual enlightenment of nursing is the steppingstone to the improvement of national health and prevention. That being said, Nightingale says, "It has been written scores of times that every woman makesa good nurse. I believe, on the contrary, that the very elements of nursing are all but unknown (6)" and describes nursing as a reparative process. By simply explaining that God teaches and justifies through reparation, Nightingale asserts a degree of authority that many would fnd hard to refute. While she is not preaching, her text is well-constructed and to-the-point; two elements which each add to the validity of her system. The clear organization and outine of Notes on Nursing constructs Nightingale as a teacher (though not condescending in tone) whose intention in teaching is improving her pupil's lives and national health. Another strategy she employs is appealing to fellow women and mothers.

Because women are traditionally considered the head of the domestic sphere, the devices and strategies that compose the content of Nightingale's text are directly applicable to their lives. At numerous intervals, she reminds her reader-perhaps some of the males doctors with whom she works and finds fault-that drigs are not enough. Nursing incorporates what medicine omits. In terms of gender, Nightingale designates women and children the most important patients when attempting to reconstruct national healthcare, but realizes that gender is far less significant in the application of proper nursing. This leads me to wonder whether Nightingale had an agenda to promote women in the medical (predoinantly masculine) field.