UNIT 1- HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF NURSING

PERIOD OF INTUITIVE NURSING

 Nursing was untaught and instinctive. It was performed out of compassion for others.
 It was practiced since prehistoric times among primitive tribes and lasted through the early
Christian era.
 Nursing was a function that belonged to women.
 They believed that illness was caused by invasion of the victim’s body by evil spirits
thru the use of black magic or voodoo.
 They believed that the medicine man was
“Shaman” or witch doctor had the power to heal by using white magic. Among others, the Shaman used
hypnosis, charms, dances, incantations, massage, fire, water, and herbs as means of driving illness from
the victim.
 They believed that the medicine man was
“Shaman” or witch doctor had the power to heal by using white magic. Among others, the Shaman used
hypnosis, charms, dances, incantations, massage, fire, water, and herbs as means of driving illness from
the victim.
 The Shaman also practiced “trephining” or drilling a hole in the skull with a rock or stone without
the benefit of anesthesia as a last resort to drive evil spirits from the victims body.
 Man’s mode of living changed from nomadic to agrarian to an urban
community life so he developed a means of communication and the beginnings of a scientific body of
knowledge.
 Nursing remained the duty of slaves, wives, sisters or mothers.
 Care of the sick was closely related to religion, superstition and magic.
 Astrology and numerology were also used in medical practice.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO NURSING AND MEDICINE

• BABYLONIA
 Code of Hammurabi- provided laws that covered every facet of Babylonian life including medical
practice. The medical regulations established fees, discouraged experimentation, recommended specific
doctors for each disease and gave each patient the right to choose between the use of charms,
medications, or surgical procedures to cure the disease.
 There was no mention of nurses or nursing.
Code of Hammurabi
• EGYPT
 Introduce the art of embalming which enhanced their knowledge of human anatomy.
 Developed the ability to make keen observation left a record of 250
recognized diseases.
 Slaves and patient’s families nursed the sick.
• ISRAEL
 Moses the “ Father of Sanitation” who wrote the five books of the Old
Testament which;
 Emphasized the practiced of hospitality to strangers and acts of charity.
 Promulgated laws of control on the spread of communicable disease and the ritual of
circumcision of the male child .
 Referred to nurses as midwives, wet nurses or child’s nurses whose acts were
 compassionate and tender.
• CHINA
 Strongly believed in spirits and demons.
 Practiced ancestor worship which prohibited the dissection of dead human body.
 They gave the knowledge of materia medica (pharmacology) which prescribed methods of
treating wounds, infections and muscular afflictions.
 No mention of nursing in their records.
 Care of the sick - done by female members of the household.
• INDIA
 Built hospitals, practiced an intuitive form of asepsis and were proficient in the practice of
medicine and surgery.
 For the first time in recorded history, there was reference to the nurse’s taking care of patient’s.
These nurses were described as combination by physical therapist and cook.
 Sushurutu made a list of function and qualifcations of nurses.
• ANCIENT GREECE
 Nursing was the task of untrained slave.
 Hippocrates who was born in Greece was give the title “Father of Scientific Medicine”.He made a
major advance in medicine by rejecting the belief that the diseases had supernatural causes. He also
developed assessment standards for clients and recognized a need for nurses.
• CADUCEUS
- the insignia of the medical profession today.
• ROME
 The Romans attemted to maintain vigorous health, because illness was a sign of weakness.
 Care of the ill was left to the slaves or Greek physicians (both groups were looked upon as
inferior by Roman society).
 Fabiola was converted to Christianity made her home as the first hospital in the Christian World.

PERIOD OF APPRENTICE NURSING

 This periods extends from the founding of religious nursing orders in the Crusades, which began
in the 11th century.
 Pastor Fliedner and his wife established the Kaiserwerth Institute for the training of Deaconesses
( a training school for nurses) in Germany.
 It is called the Period of “ on the job training”. Nursing care was performed without any formal
education and by people who were directed by more experienced nurses.
 Religious orders of the Christian Church were responsible for the
development of this kind of nursing.
 During this Period there was also the rise of Religious Nursing Orders for women. Although
christianity promoted equality to all men, women were still concentrated in their roles as wives and
mothers.
 Only by entering a convent that she cld follow a career, obtain an education and perform acts of
charity that her faith taught would help her gain grace in heaven.
 Queens, princesses and other ladies of royalty founded many religious
orders.
 Religious taboos and social restrictions influenced nursing at the time of the religious nursing
orders.
 Hospitals were poorly ventilated and the beds were filthy. There were overcrowding of patients (
3-4 patients regardless of diagnosis or whether they are alive or dead may have shared 1 bed.
 Practice of environmental sanitation and asepsis were non- existent. Older nuns were played
with and took good care of the sick; while the younger nuns washed soiled linens, usually in the rivers.
 People entered hospitals only under compulsion or as last resort.
 There was little employment and education was only for rich and the titled.

Important Nursing Personages During the Period of Apprentice Nursing

• ST CLARE - founder of the Second Order of St. Francis of Assisi.
• ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY - a daughter of a Hungarian king.
- also known as the “Patroness of Nurses”.
• ST CATHERINE OF SIENA - the first “ Lady with a Lamp”.
• St. Camillus of Lellis – Patron Saint of Hospitals & Nurses

THE DARK PERIOD OF NURSING

• This extends from the 17th to the 19th century from the Period of Reformation until the U.S.
Civil War.
• The religious upheaval led by Martin Luther destroyed the unity of the Christian faith. The wrath
of Protestantism swept away everything connected with Roman Catholocism in schools, orphanages and
hospitals.
• Properties of hospitals and schools were confiscated. Nurses fled for their lives.
• There were no provisions for the sick, no one to care for them.
• Nursing became the work of the least desirable of women - those who bribes from patients,
stole patient’s food and who used alcohol and tranquilizers.
• Nurses worked 7 days a week, slept in the cubbyholes (cranny) near the hospital ward and ate
scrap of food when they could find them.

Some reforms during the 18th century

• Pastor Theodor Fliedner and his wife established the Institute for the Training of Deaconesses at
Kaiserwerth, Germany (1836) which was the first organized training school for nurses. Among the
requirements upon entering this school were;
1. Character reference form clergyman
2. Health certificate from a doctor
3. Permission from their nearest relative
• The most notable figure who became one of the students of Deaconess School at Kaiserwerth is
Florence Nightingale, the “Mother of Modern Nursing”.
• In U.S, The Nurse’s Society of Philadelphia organized a school of nursing under the direction of
Dr. Joseph Warringtong in 1839. Nurses were trained on the job and attended some preparatory courses.
• Women’s Hospital in Philadelphia established a six- month course in nursing
to increase the nurse’s knowledge while they worked.
• They were taught a minimum amount of medical and surgical nursing, materia medica and
dietetics.
• The American Medical Association during the Civil War created the
Committee on Training of Nurses.
• It was designated to study and make recommendations with regards to the training of nurses.
• Doctors realized the need for qualified nurses.

PERIOD OF EDUCATED NURSING

• This period began on June 15, 1860 when the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing opened at
St. Thomas Hospital in London. ( St. Thomas Hospital School Of Nursing).
• The development of nursing during this period was strongly influenced by trends resulting from
wars, from arousal of social consciousness, from emancipation of women and from the increased
educational opportunities offered to women.

SCRUBS published the following nursing job description from 1887:

• In addition to caring for 50 patients, each bedside nurse will follow these regulations:
1. Daily sweep and mop the floors of your ward, dust the patient’s furniture
and window sills.
2. Maintain an even temperature in your ward by bringing in a scuttle of coal
for the day’s business.
3. Light is important to obrve patient’s condition. Therefore, each day fill
kerosene lamps, clean chimneys and trim wicks.

4. The nurse’s notes are important in aiding your physician’s work. Make your
pens carefully.
5. Each nurse on day duty will report every day at 7 a.m and leave at 8p.m ,
except on the Sabbath , on which day she will be off from 12 noon to 2 pm.
6. Graduate nurses in good standing with the director of nurses will be given an evening off each
week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if you regularly to church.
7. Each nurse should lay aside from each payday a goodly sum of her earnings for her benefits
during her declining years, so that she will not become a burden. For example, if you earn $30 a month ,
you should set aside $15.
8. Any nurse who smokes, eses liqourin any form, gets her hair done at a beauty stop of frequents
dance halls will give the director of nurses good reason to suspect her worth, intentions and integrity.
9. The nurse who performs her labors [and] seves her patients and doctors faithfully and without
fault for a period of five days will be given an increase by
the hospital admistration of five cents per day.

PERIOD OF CONTEMPORARY NURSING

 This covers the Period after World War II to the present.

 United Nations established the WHO to assist in fighting disease by providing health informion
and improving nutrition, living standards, and environmental conditions of all people.
 Health is perceived as a fundamental human right. Laws were legislated to provide such right.
 Nursing involvement in community health is greatly intensified.

 Technological advances, such as the development of disposable supplies and equipment have
relieved the nurse from numerous tedious tasks.
 development of the expanded role of the nurses.
 Nursing became a dynamic profrssion because the scope of nursing practice is expanding in the
light of the moderndevelopments in the constantly changing world.