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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #50432 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50432)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Workhouse Nursing, by Florence Nightingale
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Workhouse Nursing
- The story of a successful experiment
-
-Author: Florence Nightingale
-
-Release Date: November 11, 2015 [EBook #50432]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKHOUSE NURSING ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by MWS, Stephen Hutcheson, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
-
-
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-
-
-
-
- WORKHOUSE NURSING:
-
-
- THE STORY OF A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT.
-
-
- _London:_
- MACMILLAN AND CO.
- 1867.
-
-
-The accompanying account of the Improvements introduced by the Select
-Vestry of Liverpool into the Workhouse Hospital Wards under their
-control, may perhaps be interesting to you, and possibly might prove
-suggestive and serviceable, if similar improvements should be required
-in your district.
-
-
-As the time and strength of the Lady Superintendent of the Nurses
-employed in the Workhouse Hospital are very fully occupied, enquiries or
-requests for further information should not be addressed to her, but to
-the Chairman of the Workhouse Committee of the Select Vestry (and of the
-Hospital Sub-Committee),
-
- T. H. SATCHELL, Esq.
- _48, Lord Street_,
- Liverpool;
-
- _Or_,
-
- H. J. HAGGER, Esq.
- _Parish Offices_,
- Liverpool.
-
-
-
-
- WORKHOUSE NURSING:
- _THE STORY OF A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT._
-
-
-The following pages contain a brief account of the experiment
-successfully tried by the Select Vestry of Liverpool (the guardians of
-the poor)—the introduction of trained Nurses into the male wards of the
-Workhouse Infirmary. That experiment having resulted so successfully as
-to induce the Vestry to extend the system to the remainder of the
-infirmary, it may be interesting to those who are concerned in the
-management of workhouses elsewhere to learn something of its history and
-progress. It is the writer’s object to explain—
-
-1. The grounds on which the Vestry were led to undertake the experiment,
-as stated in the preliminary report of Mr. Carr, the governor, and that
-of the sub-committee of the Vestry appointed to consider the proposed
-scheme; and the replies received to inquiries addressed by them to
-institutions and persons connected with the training and employment of
-skilled nurses in London and Liverpool, with letters on the subject from
-Miss Nightingale and Sir John M^cNeill.
-
-2. The results of the experiment, so far as hitherto ascertained.
-
-The Liverpool Vestry had previously made considerable efforts to improve
-the workhouse infirmaries. The medical men had been encouraged to make
-requisition for every material appliance that could facilitate the cure
-of the sick; and paid female officers were appointed at the rate of one
-to each 150 or 200 beds, to superintend the giving of medicines and
-stimulants, and so forth: but of course so small a number, even had they
-been trained nurses, could do no real nursing, and could exercise little
-supervision over the twenty drunken or unreliable[1] pauper nurses who
-were under the nominal direction of each paid officer. An appeal was
-made to the Vestry to consummate the good work they had thus partially
-commenced, and it was urged that Liverpool should assume the lead in the
-task of workhouse reform. The following considerations were submitted to
-the Select Vestry:—
-
- “That Liverpool could commence this movement with great effect, and
- with the certainty that her example would be widely followed.
-
- “That she had in times past taken a leading part in such reform. The
- introduction of the New Poor Law produced little change in Liverpool;
- so many of its wisest provisions were already in operation there, some
- of them for twenty or thirty years.
-
- “That she had already established a system of attention to the sick
- poor in their own houses, which, if only by restoring heads of
- families to health and work, saved the parish many times the sum that
- it cost to private benevolence.
-
- “That, lastly and especially, the proposed reform ought to commence in
- Liverpool, because in her workhouse the guardians had already, by
- their liberality, provided the sick with everything in the shape of
- diet and medical comforts that could conduce to recovery; and what was
- now wanting to give effect to their wise benevolence was, that their
- system should be administered and their intentions carried out by
- efficient and reliable nurses, in the stead of unreliable paupers.”
-
-The appeal further urged that—
-
- “Successful efforts have been made in many directions to improve the
- nursing of the sick, and the workhouses must soon be the object of
- similar endeavours. Those poor sufferers whose disease is protracted
- and hopeless are refused admission into ordinary hospitals, and must
- come to the workhouse; and the mere duration of the illness is in such
- cases sufficient to reduce to poverty the most industrious, careful,
- and temperate—men who, while they could work, paid regularly their
- contribution to the poor-rate. Surely, these are entitled to at least
- as great care as that which sickness at once assures to the imprisoned
- felon, however criminal, for whom well-paid nurses are provided by the
- State.
-
- “As to the other class of inmates of the workhouse infirmary—those
- whose ailments are curable—mere economy requires that the most
- efficient means should be taken to cure them as speedily as possible,
- so as to preserve them and their families from becoming paupers.
-
- “Thus justice and expediency alike counsel the introduction into the
- workhouse of the best known system of nursing. Probably nothing which
- the skill and kindness of medical men can do, no food or physical
- appliances which the guardians can supply, no oversight or care which
- they, acting through pauper nurses, can bring to bear, are wanting in
- the Liverpool workhouse; but it is to be feared that much of this
- care, liberality, and thought fails of its object for want of a
- sufficient number of reliable and duly qualified nurses to carry out
- the instructions given, to administer food and medicine to the
- patients, to dress their wounds, and so forth.”
-
-This appeal was supported by two letters of Miss Nightingale and Sir
-John M^cNeill, G.C.B., President of the Board of Supervision (the Scotch
-Poor Law Board).
-
-
- _Letter from_ Miss Nightingale.
-
- 115, Park Street, W.
- _February 5, 1864._
-
- My dear Sir,
-
- I will not delay another day expressing how much I admire, and how
- deeply I sympathize with the Workhouse plan.
-
- First let me say that Workhouse sick and Workhouse Infirmaries
- require quite as much care as (I had almost said more than)
- Hospital sick. There is an even greater work to be accomplished in
- Workhouse Infirmaries than in Hospitals.
-
- In days long ago, when I visited in one of the largest London
- Workhouse Infirmaries, I became fully convinced of this.
-
- How gladly would I have become the Matron of a Workhouse.
-
- But of a Visitor’s visit, the only result is to break the
- Visitor’s heart. She sees how much could be done and cannot do it.
-
- Liverpool is of all places the one to try this great Reform in.
- Its example is sure to be followed. It has an admirable body of
- Guardians; it is a thorough practical people; it has, or soon will
- have again, money.
-
- Lord Russell once said (what is quite true), that the Poor Law was
- never meant to supersede private charity.
-
- But whatever may be the difficulties about Pauperism, in two
- things most people agree—viz. that Workhouse sick ought to have
- the best practical nursing, as well as Hospital sick—and that a
- good wise Matron may save many of these from life-long pauperism,
- by first nursing them well, and then rousing them to exertion, and
- helping them to employment.
-
- In such a scheme as is wisely proposed, there would be four
- elements.
-
- 1. The Guardians, one of whose functions is to check pauperism.
- They could not be expected to incur greater cost than at present,
- _unless_ it is proved that it cures or saves life.
-
- 2. The Visiting or Managing Committee of the Guardians, whose
- authority must not (and need not) in any way be interfered with.
-
- 3. The Governor, the Medical Officer, and Chaplain.
-
- 4. (And under the Governor) the proposed Superintendent of Nurses
- and her nursing staff.
-
- There is no reason why all these parts of the machine should not
- work together.
-
- The funds are provided to pay the extra nursing for a time.
-
- The difficulty is to find the Lady to govern it.
-
- When appointed, she must be authorized—indeed appointed—by the
- Guardians. She must be their Officer; and must be invested by the
- Governor with authority to superintend her Nurses in conformity
- with regulations to be agreed upon.
-
- So far, I see no more difficulty than there was in settling our
- relations as Nurses to the government officials in the Crimean
- War.
-
- The cases are somewhat similar.
-
- As to the funds, it is just possible that eventually the Guardians
- might take all the cost on themselves, as soon as they saw the
- great advantages and economy of good nursing.
-
- If Liverpool succeeds, the system is quite sure to extend itself.
-
- The Fever Hospital is one of the Workhouse Infirmaries. That is
- the place to shew what skilful nursing can do. The patients are
- not all paupers. How many families might be rescued from pauperism
- by saving the lives of their heads, and by helping the
- hard-working to more speedy convalescence!
-
- Hopefully yours,
- (Signed) FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.
-
-
-_Extract from a letter from the_ Right Honourable Sir John M^cNeill,
- G.C.B., _dated Granton House, Edinburgh, 28th Feb., 1864_.
-
- There can be no doubt, I think, that it would be a mistake to have
- pauper nurses mixed up with paid nurses, and I think I expressed
- that opinion when we conversed about those things. Paupers might,
- however, be employed to scrub and to do other menial work, under
- the orders of the paid nurses. If the paid nurses are to do much
- good they must have a recognised authority in their wards. Without
- authority there cannot be due responsibility, and things must get
- into confusion. A nurse carrying out the instructions of the
- medical officer must have authority to do so, and resistance to
- that authority must be treated as a breach of discipline.
-
- To put this upon a right footing from the first, would be
- indispensable to success. The more a nurse does by influence, and
- kindly influence, the better; but dealing with the promiscuous
- inmates of a workhouse, the knowledge that there is authority in
- reserve to be exercised if necessary, prevents the necessity of
- resorting to it, and makes the patients duly appreciate the
- kindness which keeps it in reserve.
-
- With regard to all such matters, a great deal will depend upon the
- good-will, the good sense, and good feeling of the Governor and
- Matron, but especially of the Governor. He can do much to promote
- or to mar the success of the experiment, and so can the medical
- men; but if they be men of sense and right feeling, they cannot
- fail to perceive how vast an addition to their own comfort the
- permanent establishment of such a system as you propose to
- introduce experimentally, must produce.
-
- The position of a medical man dependent for the execution of his
- instructions upon nurses who are neither intelligent nor
- trustworthy, is very painful, and tends to deteriorate his own
- character, both as a man and as a practitioner, by rendering him
- callous to preventible suffering which he is denied the proper
- means of relieving, and by compelling him to forego the use of
- remedies which require intelligence and conscientious care in
- administering them. The house Governor, if he be a conscientious
- man, must be kept in continual anxiety about the conduct of
- ignorant, and often worthless pauper nurses in the hospital, and
- is driven at length to be satisfied with a low moral and
- intellectual standard in the nurses, and a corresponding standard
- of care and comfort in the hospital.
-
-The Select Vestry took the subject into their serious consideration,
-and instituted most careful inquiries in various quarters. Among
-other steps, they called for a report on the probable operation of
-the proposed system from Mr. Carr, the Governor of the Workhouse.
-That report ran as follows:—
-
-
- _Extract from the Journal of the Governor of the Workhouse._
-
- Liverpool, Thursday, _April 14, 1864_.
-
- In compliance with the instructions of the Workhouse Committee, I
- have carefully considered the proposal made to the Committee by a
- Liverpool gentleman, on the subject of nursing the sick in the
- Workhouse Hospital, and beg in reference thereto to report—
-
- That, practically, the proposal amounts to this—that there shall
- not be any pauper nurses in the hospital, but that there shall be
- appointed in lieu a staff of duly qualified paid nurses and
- servants, with a head superintendent, under whom the whole of the
- nursing of the sick shall be conducted on the best known
- principles.
-
- This proposal rests its claim to favourable consideration on the
- presumption that the present system of nursing the sick in the
- Workhouse Hospital is defective. The Committee are aware what that
- system is. It may thus be briefly stated. Certain wards of the
- workhouse are set apart as hospital wards. They do not form an
- hospital worked as a whole, but are divided into five portions,
- each forming a distinct set of wards, in close proximity to the
- wards of the healthy paupers, and in five different parts of the
- workhouse. These five sets of wards I shall call the Workhouse
- Hospital. The hospital is divided into eleven sections. At the
- head of each section there is an intelligent paid superintendent
- nurse, and under each such superintendent nurse there is placed a
- staff of pauper nurses, with the aid of whom she is required to
- work her division, according to certain rules and regulations made
- and provided for that purpose. A copy of these rules is appended
- hereto; from which it will be seen that the burden of the
- responsibility of carrying out the orders of the medical officers,
- devolves upon the head nurses or superintendents of divisions. The
- pauper nurses clean up the wards, carry the food, and give general
- assistance to the superintendent—the duties of nursing in detail,
- that is to say, the bedside nursing, falling chiefly upon them.
- They are not permitted, however, to serve any patient with
- stimulants, beer, porter, or medicines requiring exactness or
- care; all such duties are discharged by the superintendent nurse.
- The proposal now made to the Committee, means that the paid staff
- shall be increased, so that the sick shall be cared for by
- responsible officers only, and not left, even partially, to the
- care of pauper nurses.
-
- There is no doubt that pauper nurses are unreliable, inefficient,
- and many of them very worthless; and it is only by careful
- watching, and the utmost stringency of regulations, that they can
- be made serviceable in the hospital. No stringency of regulations,
- however, could guard against the most flagrant abuses, if these
- women were employed to discharge duties of trust, such as serving
- out the stimulants, &c. so that their services in attending upon
- the sick are limited and common-place. There is therefore, in my
- mind, no doubt, and I cannot see how any doubt can exist, that to
- remove these women, and appoint in their places women of
- character, trained as nurses, will tend to improve the position of
- the sick, and more rapidly restore many of them to health.
-
- To displace these pauper women, however, involves a complete
- change in all the hospital arrangements, and suggests the
- difficulty of finding and keeping up a supply of suitable nurses
- to undertake the work at, as it would no doubt often happen, short
- notice. The Committee are aware, too, that owing to the fact that
- the paupers have hitherto been required to attend upon the sick,
- the accommodation for paid officers is very limited, and that the
- adoption of the proposal would render it necessary at once to
- provide additional rooms for the additional staff. The Committee
- are also aware that the Workhouse Hospital differs from other
- hospitals in this—that it forms a part only of a mixed
- establishment, and that there are great difficulties to be
- overcome in completely cutting off every connexion or species of
- intercourse between the hospital departments and the healthy
- inmates, without which the scheme under consideration could hardly
- succeed. If any good is to result from the adoption of this
- proposal, the sick should be placed absolutely and entirely in the
- hands of a paid staff, without the assistance, in any form, of any
- one of the pauper inmates. Cut off the hospital department from
- the healthy wards; and do not, under any pretext, suffer
- communication between the sick and the healthy, and you strike at
- the root of every species of workhouse abuse; but if, under any
- pretext, you suffer a large number of healthy paupers to pass
- daily into the sick departments, as they now do, the adoption of
- the proposal will effect little good.
-
- But the question has to be still further investigated on the
- ground of expense; and it has to be decided the number, pay,
- allowances, and accommodation of the necessary staff to work it
- out. Now, although I entertain very strong opinions as to the
- undesirability of employing paupers to discharge responsible
- duties of any kind, because to do so destroys the value of the
- workhouse test, and tends to reconcile them to pauperism; and
- although I view the particular work of nurse-tending as the very
- worst kind of work for paupers, inasmuch as, while so employed,
- they are better fed, have more freedom of action than they
- otherwise would, and can make their places emolumental—thereby
- holding out a positive inducement to pauperism; and although I
- have no doubt that the displacement of these women would be
- followed by the immediate application for discharges by a large
- per-centage of them; and although, at this moment, many other
- weighty considerations press upon me in favour of the immediate
- adoption of the proposal under consideration, I feel unwilling, in
- view of the difficulties to be overcome, some of which I have
- indicated, to incur the weighty responsibility of recommending
- such a course on my own unaided judgment. I have abstained,
- therefore, from taking up the question of expense, &c. but take
- the liberty respectfully to suggest, that a sub-committee be
- appointed to report upon the whole question in all its details. It
- shall be my anxious desire and pleasure to assist the labours of
- such sub-committee by every means in my power.
-
-According to the recommendation of Mr. Carr, a Sub-Committee was
-appointed, consisting of men of great experience in parochial
-business, who went up to London, and had interviews with the medical
-and other officers of the two metropolitan hospitals where nursing
-has been brought to the greatest perfection—St. Thomas’s and King’s
-College Hospitals. Finding that some of these gentlemen wished for
-more information respecting the Workhouse Hospital system before
-they would venture to express decided opinions as to the economical
-results of the proposed reform, the Liverpool Visitors drew up a
-statement on several points affecting this question, with written
-inquiries, to which answers were returned, verbally or in writing,
-by the gentlemen consulted. This statement, with the replies which
-it elicited, is here given at length:—[2]
-
-
- STATEMENT AND QUESTIONS OF THE LIVERPOOL SUB-COMMITTEE.
-
- The population of the Parish of Liverpool is about 270,000.
-
- The expenditure from the poor’s-rate in and about the relief of
- the poor is about 100,000_l_. per annum.
-
- Of this about 40,000_l_. is distributed in out-door relief as
- money and bread. (Of course sickness is one great cause of persons
- seeking relief, though to what extent this cause operates, even
- directly, I cannot on so short a notice ascertain or even
- estimate.)
-
- The expenses (direct) of treating the out-door sick are:—
-
- Salaries of Medical Officers, &c. £1,800
- Medicines, &c. 1,378
- £3,178
-
- The cost of maintaining the Workhouse Hospital may be estimated as
- follows:—
-
- Maintenance of Patients £9,700
- Salaries of Medical Officers 485
- Medicines, &c. 1,050
- £11,235
-
- The Hospital contains accommodation for over 1,000 patients, and
- has often 1,000 in it. The cases at present are:—
-
- Medical 485
- Surgical 345
- Fever 120
- Smallpox 20
-
- The weekly discharges are from twenty to thirty per cent. of the
- whole number in the hospital.[3]
-
- The present workhouse staff consists of fourteen paid officers
- (who are superintendents, but not trained nurses), and about 150
- paupers acting as nurses, but not paid. It has been proposed to
- add a trained hospital matron and trained nurses, such as those
- trained in the Nightingale School, and assistant nurses, so as to
- give one trained day-nurse and one paid assistant to about every
- three pauper nurses, and a trained night-nurse on every flat; it
- is further proposed to pay the paupers who act as nurses, wages.
- The cost of this would be about 2,000_l_. per annum.
-
- Does your experience of hospitals lead you to believe that the
- cost of this improved system would be “in part,” “wholly,” or
- “more than” repaid to the ratepayers by curing people more
- quickly, by curing those who otherwise might have become chronic
- cases, and by enabling those to resume their work who must
- otherwise have remained or died, and by thus diminishing the
- duration or amount of that part of pauperism which is the result
- of sickness?
-
-
- REPLIES OF PHYSICIANS, &c. OF ST. THOMAS’S HOSPITAL.
-
-
-1. _Reply of_ R. H. Goolden, Esq., M.D.
-
-
-“I have no doubt but that the plan suggested, if properly carried
-out, would be in the end a saving to the ratepayers, the restoration
-to health relieving the parish of constant burdens.”
-
-
-2. _Reply of_ John Simon, Esq.
-
-
-“I do not feel myself competent to measure at all exactly what might
-be the pecuniary result of the proposed system. But in my opinion
-the substitution of skilled for unskilled attendance would be of
-great advantage to the sick, and would of course tend to diminish
-that part of the pauperism which results from sickness.”
-
-
-3. _Reply of_ Sydney Jones, Esq., M.B.
-
-
-“In my opinion the improved system of nursing recommended would
-amply repay the expense incurred.”
-
-
-4. _Reply of_ J. S. Bristowe, Esq., M.D.
-
-
-“I believe that the introduction of paid nurses into the Liverpool
-Workhouse Infirmary would be of inestimable benefit to the sick poor
-received into the institution, and would thus amply justify the
-expense which it is proposed to incur. I also think it very probable
-that the cost of nursing would be repaid in many other ways to the
-ratepayers.”
-
-
-5. _Reply of_ Edward Clapton, Esq., M.D.
-
-
-“I believe it would be quite repaid.”
-
-
- REPLIES FROM THE PHYSICIANS, &c. OF KING’S COLLEGE HOSPITAL.
-
-
-1. _Reply of_ Henry Smith, Esq. _Assistant Surgeon_.
-
-
-“I believe, from a long experience of hospitals and other
-institutions, that the cost of an improved system of nursing as
-proposed for the Liverpool Workhouse Hospital would certainly be ‘in
-part’ repaid by restoring the patients to health more quickly.”
-
-
-2. _Copy of a Letter from_ Miss Jones, _Lady Superintendent of St.
-John’s House Nursing Schools, and Matron of King’s College
-Hospital_.
-
- King’s College Hospital, _May 4, 1864_.
-
- Dear Sir,
-
- The inclosed paper was sent to me yesterday, with the request that
- I would obtain from some of the medical staff of this Hospital
- answers to the question proposed at the end of the paper, in order
- to enable the Vestry in some degree to judge whether that body
- would be justified, or otherwise, in sanctioning the introduction
- to their Workhouse Hospital of an improved system of nursing the
- sick, at the probable annual money cost named in the inclosed
- paper.
-
- I have accordingly submitted the paper to as many of the medical
- staff as I could see in the short time.
-
- I inclose a note from Mr. Henry Smith, one of the surgeons, who
- has had considerable experience as to the loss and gain of good
- and bad nursing.
-
- Dr. Wm. O. Priestly, the Physician Accoucheur to this Hospital,
- formerly of Middlesex Hospital, had not time during his visit to
- do more than read the paper and give me a verbal answer. He said,
- “I have no hesitation in saying that the saving would be certain
- and great.”
-
- The Assistant Physician Accoucheur, who has until last week had
- charge of the medical patients here, as House Physician (Mr. H. L.
- Kempthorne), says, “The value of trained efficient nursing cannot
- be overrated in the management of acute diseases, and especially
- fevers, and would speak for itself in the saving of life, humanly
- speaking.
-
- “In chronic cases, the eye of the trained nurse would soon detect
- the malingerer, and thus save the parish the expense of
- maintaining one who could well keep himself.
-
- “In the prevention and amelioration of disease this plan would
- soon show its importance in the effects of cleanliness,
- ventilation, and other points carried out systematically and
- intelligently.
-
- “The moral influence of the trained nurses by precept and example
- must in time diffuse itself through the medium of the pauper
- nurses to the paupers in hospital, the workhouse, and thence to
- the parish at large.”
-
- I regret my inability to obtain fuller testimony to-day, but
- professional men are busy, and their visits to the hospital only
- on stated days.
-
- If I can be of further use in any way, pray command me.
-
- I am, Sir,
- Very faithfully yours,
- (Signed) M. J.
- _Superintendent of St. John’s._
-
-After collecting and considering all the information within their
-reach, the Sub-Committee reported as follows:—
-
- The Sub-Committee appointed on the 14th ultimo to consider and
- report as to a suggested alteration in the Staff of the Workhouse
- Hospital, report,
-
- That the superiority, as nurses, of trained, experienced, and
- responsible women to the pauper women upon whom, under the present
- system, the actual nursing of the sick inmates of the workhouse
- devolves, is so apparent, that they conceive it to be unnecessary
- to offer any further observations upon this part of the subject.
- The points which have mainly occupied your Committee’s attention
- are the following:—
-
- 1. The cost of introducing a staff of trained nurses into the
- Workhouse Hospital, or any portion thereof.
- 2. The practicability of providing sufficient accommodation in the
- Workhouse for such an increase of officers.
- 3. The supply of trained nurses.
-
-1. Your Committee are of opinion that the substitution throughout
-the Workhouse Hospital of trained nurses, for the present pauper
-nurses, would involve a direct expenditure of from 2,000_l._ to
-2,500_l._ per annum. Should it be decided, in the first instance, to
-introduce the nurses into the male hospital only, it is probable
-that a sum of 800_l._ per annum would be found sufficient for the
-purpose. Evidence has been laid before the Committee to show that in
-those hospitals where the improved system of nursing has been
-introduced, the increased cost thereof has been more than
-compensated for by the saving, from the reduction of the time during
-which the patients are under treatment—the effect, as is alleged, of
-good and efficient nursing. Whilst your Committee admit the force of
-the argument, that if this be so in the case of hospitals, where the
-sick only are burdens upon the funds of the institution, much more
-must it be so in the case of the parish, where, as often happens,
-the whole family are chargeable upon the rates in consequence of the
-sickness of its head; they think it necessary to point out that one
-great difference between the workhouse hospital and an ordinary
-infirmary consists in this, that while in the latter (as a rule)
-none but acute and supposed curable cases are admitted, the former
-is, in many cases, the refuge of those who, as incurables, cannot
-gain admittance to other asylums. There can, however, be no doubt
-that the saving resulting from the rapidity and completeness of the
-cures effected by good nursing, will be a considerable set-off
-against the increased cost of the nursing staff; though your
-Committee can offer no decided opinion as to the probable extent of
-the saving so effected.
-
-2. Your Committee believe that accommodation equal at least, if not
-superior, to that afforded to the nurses in the London hospitals,
-can be provided in the Workhouse at a moderate outlay. It is
-estimated that, for the male hospital, a sum of from 400_l._ to
-500_l._ would suffice to provide the rooms and to furnish them.
-
-3. With reference to the supply of suitable nurses, your Committee
-have to report that, as the authorities of the Nightingale Training
-School for nurses have offered to render to the Select Vestry all
-the assistance in their power in obtaining trained nurses, no great
-difficulty on this point need be apprehended.
-
-Were your Committee as sanguine as some of the hospital authorities
-whom they have consulted, as to the happy results to be expected
-from the introduction of trained nurses into the Workhouse, they
-would at once, with the utmost confidence, recommend that the whole
-of the hospital should, at the cost of the parish, be supplied with
-this class of officers; but, looking upon it as they do, as an
-experiment (at least in its economical results), they unanimously
-recommend that the system should, in the first instance, be tried in
-the male hospital.
-
- J. W. CROPPER, _Chairman_.
-
-_May 5, 1864._
-
-The report of the Sub-Committee met with the approval of the Vestry.
-Some delay in the adoption of its recommendations was caused by a
-severe outbreak of fever in the town, which for the time absorbed
-all the resources of the Vestry and its officers. But on the 18th of
-May, 1865, a Lady Superintendent who had received a thorough
-training at Kaiserswerth and St. Thomas’s, twelve Nightingale nurses
-from St. Thomas’s, eighteen probationers, and fifty-two of the old
-pauper nurses were placed in charge of the patients in the male
-wards of the Workhouse Infirmary. By the judicious management of Mr.
-Carr, the most admirable arrangements were made for the
-accommodation of the nurses. Each superior nurse had a little room
-to herself, and the ex-pauper nurses were entirely separated from
-the other inmates of the Workhouse. It was hoped that by taking the
-best of the able-bodied inmates, separating them from the other
-paupers, and paying them small wages (say 5_l._ a year) they might
-be made available as assistant nurses, and that many of them might
-be elevated into independence and usefulness. It will be seen from
-the foregoing report of the Governor (p. 10), that he always
-distrusted this part of the plan adopted; and after the system had
-been at work a year, this attempt to utilize pauper nurses in a
-workhouse hospital was found to have utterly failed. It was proved
-that in a town like Liverpool, with very few exceptions, those
-able-bodied women only become inmates of the Workhouse who are
-either tainted in character, or are exceptionally ill-educated and
-inefficient. The experiment, however, was not wholly useless. It
-conclusively established two facts: that such women are utterly
-unfit to be trusted as nurses; and that their employment in that
-capacity does not effect all the saving that might be supposed. It
-might be thought that the choice lay between such employment and
-maintaining the pauper in idleness, while paying a nurse in her
-stead. But it was found—as the Governor had always predicted—that
-when sent back from the hospital to the able-bodied wards, nearly
-the whole of these women left the Workhouse, and relieved the parish
-from the charge of their maintenance. Many of these women, when
-employed as nurses, remain in the Workhouse for the sake of what
-they can pick up or extort. And moreover, when they left it, the
-training they had received, such as it was, rendered them more
-intelligent, and perhaps not more unreliable nurses than those
-usually employed by the poor. It is not unlikely that in country
-places the unfitness of able-bodied paupers to become assistant
-nurses may be far less than it has been found to be in a great
-seaport town like Liverpool. They may probably be less universally
-tainted in character, and after a year or two of employment as
-under-nurses they may be able to maintain themselves in that
-capacity out-of-doors, thus not only relieving the parish of their
-own maintenance, but assisting to diminish sickness and pauperism
-among their neighbours. The point is one which must be left to local
-knowledge and experience. It might be well, however, not to promise
-them payment till after some length of probationary service. It was
-always after pay-day that the ex-pauper nurses were most liable to
-get drunk and misbehave.[4] With the exception of the failure of the
-nurses taken from the pauper class, the first year’s trial was
-sufficiently successful to induce a continuance of the experiment.
-It was impossible, however, to judge the result by statistics. None
-that were available could be considered as an evidence of success or
-failure, for several reasons. The season was very unhealthy, and to
-relieve the pressure on the space and resources of the hospital,
-steps were taken to treat slight cases outside, as will be seen from
-the following extract from the Minutes of the Finance Committee,
-24th November, 1865:—
-
- “The district medical officers, Dr. Gee, Mr. Barnes, and the
- Governor of the workhouse being in attendance, pursuant to
- resolution of the Workhouse Committee at its meeting yesterday,
- the practicability of limiting the admissions to the Workhouse
- Hospital was considered, and the district medical officers were
- requested to co-operate with the relieving officers in limiting
- such admissions to those cases that cannot be properly treated
- outside the Workhouse.”
-
-The endeavour to limit the admissions to serious cases would of
-course affect the returns, both as regards the time taken in curing,
-and the proportion of deaths. Even had there been no exceptional
-disturbing element, there is a defect in the statistics of workhouse
-hospitals which affects all inferences from them, in the absence of
-any careful classified list of cases kept by the medical officers,
-such as might fairly enable one to form a judgment from mere
-statistical tables. These, then, are not reliable as means of
-judgment, unless extending over a long period. The character of
-seasons, and nature of cases admitted, varies so much from year to
-year as to invalidate any deductions, unless founded on complete and
-minutely kept medical records. The following extracts, however, from
-the reports of the Governor, and the surgical and medical officers
-of the Workhouse, bear decisive witness to the value of the “new
-system,” especially as contrasted with the “old system,” which in
-1865-66 still prevailed in the female wards. All these reports bear
-emphatic testimony to the merits and devotion of the Lady
-Superintendent and her staff. The medical men, it is noteworthy,
-speak strongly of the better discipline and far greater obedience to
-their orders observable where the trained nurses are employed—a
-point the more important because it is that on which, before
-experience has reassured them, medical and other authorities have
-often been most doubtful.
-
-
- _From the Report of the Governor._
-
- Thursday, _May 10, 1866_.
-
- The main feature in the new system of nursing consists in the
- superseding of pauper nurses, and appointing in their places
- competent trained nurses from the Nightingale School. These latter
- to have the assistance of “probationary nurses,” or in other
- words, women of intelligence and of good character desirous of
- entering upon the duties of nursing the sick as a profession. A
- third class was also created, designated “Assistants.” These were
- selected from the old pauper nurses, and it was decided that they
- should be paid, clothed, and receive rations equal in quality and
- quantity to those issued to the officers of the workhouse. The
- nurses, probationers, and assistants were placed under the control
- of a “Lady Superintendent,” who was empowered to employ them in
- the manner to her seeming best for the proper care of the sick.
-
- The Committee will be prepared to hear that the change was
- immediately followed by the most marked improvement in every
- respect. The most casual observer could not avoid perceiving it.
- This applies not only to the state of the wards, the care of the
- sick, but is particularly observable in the demeanour of the
- patients, upon whom the humanizing influences of a body of women
- of character, devotedly discharging their duties, has produced
- evident fruits.
-
- The question has often been asked whether the “new system is
- likely to succeed?” The “old system” meant nothing more than this,
- that old, ignorant, and unreliable pauper women, many of whom were
- of doubtful character, were entrusted with the discharge, without
- pay, of responsible duties. These have been displaced, and active,
- intelligent, reliable women, trained and skilled as nurses, with
- good characters and pay, have been appointed to supersede them. It
- would be a great discredit if these latter did not discharge their
- duties incomparably better than the former could do. That they do
- so I am happy to be in a position to testify.
-
- In the opening paragraph of this report it is stated that
- “assistant nurses” were appointed and placed upon pay from the
- ranks of the paupers. This I was always opposed to. Their
- employment has resulted in complete failure, as the following
- figures will prove. The total number appointed to this date is
- 141. Of these sixty-seven have been dismissed through drunkenness
- and other misconduct, and sixteen have resigned; while it is
- positively true that there is not one of the whole number to whom
- I could entrust the duties of serving out wine or other
- stimulants, or, in fact, any duty requiring the exercise of
- integrity.
-
- The experience of the past year renders it certain that the Poor
- Law, as now existing, offers no impediments to the successful
- working out of the most complete scheme for the efficient nursing
- of the sick, in the manner advocated by the best friends of
- hospital nursing.
-
- (Signed) GEO. CARR.
-
-
- _From the Report of_ Robert Gee, Esq. M.D. _Physician to the
- Workhouse Hospital_.
-
- 5, Abercromby Square, Liverpool,
- _May 10, 1866_.
-
- Sir,
-
- In the medical wards of a general hospital the cases vary so much
- in nature and degree from year to year, as to render it impossible
- to give a reliable statistical comparison of the value of a paid
- as distinguished from an unpaid staff of nurses. I am, therefore,
- necessarily compelled to report in general terms on the nursing of
- the last ten months in the male medical wards; premising that what
- I say in approbation of the new system, and the new staff of
- nurses must not be construed as an unfavourable reflection on the
- _whole_ of the previous staff. The paid superintending nurses of
- departments, and a few of the unpaid pauper nurses, deserve great
- credit for their conduct, though their qualifications for the
- service were decidedly inferior to those of the trained
- “Nightingale” staff.
-
- With regard to the latter I can cordially bear testimony to their
- ability, and to their unwearied and uniformly kind attention to
- the patients under their charge. As to their nursing in its
- specific sense, I may state my belief that in every case my
- directions and those of the House Surgeons have been rigidly
- carried out. The medicines, stimulants, &c. &c. have been
- carefully administered, and the other numerous but less agreeable
- duties have been faithfully and efficiently attended to. Under
- their charge I have perceived a marked improvement in the
- demeanour of the patients—in fact, the discipline of the wards is
- completely changed. There has been no disorder or irregularity,
- but a sense of comfort, order, and quiet pervades the whole
- department. I believe further, that every patient leaving the
- wards has been more or less morally elevated during his location
- there.
-
-
- _From the Report of_ J. H. Barnes, Esq., _Surgeon_.
-
- _March 21, 1866._
-
- Since my connexion with the hospital last August we have had
- somewhat approaching a hundred operations, many of them of a
- serious and dangerous character, requiring not only prompt
- assistance at the time, but most persevering attention night and
- day for a long time after. Almost all these operations have been
- in the male hospital, and I have no hesitation in saying that what
- success has attended them has been greatly owing to the most
- efficient assistance rendered by the trained nurses; and from my
- experience of the assistance received from the pauper nurses, in
- the few cases of operation performed in the female hospital, I
- should feel great diffidence in undertaking on that side such
- operations as I have had on the other side: indeed on one or two
- occasions the pauper nurses ran away, and when induced to assist
- were so nervous and frightened as to be of little service.
-
- Without any wish to speak harshly of the unpaid nurses employed on
- the female side of the hospital (who, I believe, strive to do
- their best, more especially since a feeling of emulation has been
- set up by the introduction of the paid trained nurses, of whom
- they are jealous), I am compelled to state my conviction that on
- that side my directions are not carried out with that necessary
- promptitude and skill that they are on the other side, and that in
- all I do there I feel as if I were working with blunted
- instruments. There is no want of inclination, but simply a want of
- ability. That _integrity of disposition, promptitude of action,
- tact in manipulation, gentleness of demeanour and kindly
- consideration_ necessary to make a nurse are not found, or _to be_
- found in the inmates of a workhouse, and no amount of education
- can work out of them what never was in them. Almost always obtuse,
- and too often unprincipled, as a class they are thoroughly
- unreliable, and quite unfitted to take charge of the sick and
- helpless, or the stimulants necessary for them. On this last point
- I have been informed by a former resident surgeon that he has
- known the pauper nurses appropriate the patient’s stimulants, or
- withhold giving to a dying patient that ordered for him, that they
- might take it themselves after his death. It is difficult to bring
- home and prove these things, and I do not wish to say they now
- occur, but if we wish to put such conduct out of the region of
- possibility it can only be done by the employment of persons
- superior to the temptation so to act.
-
- Persons of one class, as a rule, favour their own class, and there
- is a far better chance of double-dealers being detected when under
- the observation and care of a trained nurse, than when under the
- care of one of themselves. That such is the case my own experience
- testifies.
-
- As far, therefore, as my experience extends of the system of
- trained nurses, whether regarding the saving of life, the
- restoration to health, or the relief of the suffering, it has been
- an undoubted success.
-
-These reports were duly considered by the authorities; and after
-some discussion, it was resolved entirely to discontinue, in the
-male hospital ward, the employment of paupers as assistant nurses,
-and to substitute an additional number of probationers. A
-Sub-Committee of the Workhouse Committee was appointed to
-superintend and report upon the working of the system. These
-gentlemen devoted much time and attention to the subject, and at the
-close of the year undertook a minute inquiry into the operation of
-the old and new systems; examining personally the various officers
-of the Workhouse, from the Governor down to the pauper nurses in the
-female wards. Increased experience brought out in a yet stronger
-light the superior advantages of the employment of trained nurses.
-The very able, clear, and conclusive report of the Sub-Committee
-leaves little more to be said on the subject. It determined the
-Vestry to adopt the system in permanence, and to extend it to the
-whole of the Workhouse Infirmary, a year before the period fixed for
-the trial of the experiment had expired. It will be seen that the
-report of the second year’s experience has a peculiar value, as
-bearing on the question whether, or how far, women may be competent
-to undertake one of the most delicate and difficult kinds of
-feminine work—one requiring special knowledge as well as special
-habits of punctual regularity, obedience, and thoughtfulness—without
-receiving any special training or education for such a duty. If the
-reforms about to be introduced into the pauper hospitals in London
-and elsewhere are not to end in failure and disappointment,
-provision must be made for training the nurses to be employed there,
-either before they enter the hospitals or within them.
-
-The report of the Sub-Committee of Superintendence is as follows:—
-
- The Special Committee on Nursing, pursuant to resolution of the
- Workhouse Committee of the 7th of March instant, report,
-
- That the Men’s Hospital (exclusive of fever patients) is at
- present exclusively nursed by skilled, _i. e._ specially trained
- nurses and paid assistants, who are themselves undergoing training
- as nurses; the staff consisting of the Superintendent, nine of the
- nurses originally sent from the Nightingale School, five nurses
- who have been trained in the Workhouse, and fifteen probationary
- or assistant nurses.
-
- Of the character of the nursing in this portion of the Workhouse,
- your Committee have heard but one opinion. The Governor and the
- Medical Officers concur in speaking of it in terms of the highest
- praise, and throughout the whole period during which the Committee
- have superintended it, no single circumstance has come to their
- knowledge calculated to make them speak of it otherwise than in
- terms of approval.
-
- The nursing of the women’s wards continues to be done by paupers
- under the superintendence of paid officers. The superintendence of
- these officers is of necessity very imperfect, as not only has
- each charge of from 150 to 200 patients, but these patients are
- located in several rooms, each ward containing about twenty
- patients. The only portion of the nursing, properly so called,
- which these officers undertake, is the administration of
- stimulants and in some exceptional cases of medicine. The bulk of
- it, as the giving of medicine, the dressing of wounds, the
- distribution of food, is left to be done by paupers. So much has
- from time to time been said of the untrustworthiness of pauper
- nurses, of the evils resulting to those patients who are placed
- exclusively under them, of the mischievous consequences upon the
- discipline of the Workhouse of a large number of petty offices
- being filled by able-bodied women, that your Committee believe
- they rightly interpret the feeling of the Select Vestry, as they
- undoubtedly do that of the general public, in supposing that the
- actual nursing of the sick in the Liverpool Workhouse can no
- longer be left in the hands of pauper nurses.
-
- Starting from this point, your Committee considered that they had
- principally to inquire what sort of nursing can be most
- advantageously substituted for that of nursing by paupers. Two
- courses only appeared to be open to them—either to increase the
- number of paid officers, giving to each such a number of patients
- as she could reasonably be expected to look after, and treating
- each as an independent officer; or to extend over the whole
- hospital the system now in existence in the men’s wards. Your
- Committee were much aided in forming a judgment upon this point,
- by what has taken place during the last few months in the fever
- hospital.
-
- Here, originally, the paid attendants were in precisely the same
- position, with precisely similar duties as the paid officers in
- the women’s hospital; but the number of patients rapidly
- diminishing, and no corresponding reduction taking place in the
- number of officers, the staff was so large that Dr. Gee felt able
- to call upon the officers to act as nurses. The result was what
- might have been anticipated, that although an improvement upon the
- old system of nursing by paupers was perceptible, the state of the
- nursing was still far short of the standard reached in the men’s
- wards.
-
- The officers were told to nurse, and they did their best, but
- never having themselves been taught, their attempts in a great
- measure failed; they were paid and retained as nurses, without
- being efficient nurses.
-
- Your Committee therefore recommend that as soon as the requisite
- number of trained nurses can be procured, the nursing in the
- women’s hospital, and afterwards in the fever hospital, be placed
- in the hands of trained and skilled nurses, acting under the
- direction and control of Miss Jones, the present Superintendent.
- The expenses (beyond the item of wages) attendant upon the
- necessary increase in the number of nurses will not be great, as
- all that will be necessary will be to convert two of the rooms now
- used for sick boys into sleeping apartments for the nurses. In
- making this recommendation, the Committee are glad to know that
- they are fortified by the unanimous opinion of the Governor and
- the Medical Officers of the Workhouse.
-
- Your Committee are bound to add that they can produce no
- statistics shewing that the nursing in the men’s hospital has been
- of any economical advantage to the Parish; but as it needs no
- argument to prove that the cheapest course that can be taken with
- a sick pauper is to cure him as quickly as possible; as it is
- evident that the care and attention of a skilled nurse must tend
- to a more speedy recovery; as the order and discipline of a
- well-regulated ward is more distasteful to many of the more
- worthless inmates, than the laxer management of a room in the
- hands of a pauper nurse; and as the abolition of a large number of
- petty offices for able-bodied paupers must lead to many of them
- leaving the Workhouse, there are strong grounds for hoping that
- the economical results of the change cannot but be beneficial.
-
- With regard to the future, your Committee recommend that the
- Department of Nursing should be placed under the direction of a
- small committee of your body, and that all changes in the staff
- should be made only by them. From information they have received,
- your Committee have reason to believe that if, after the Workhouse
- is supplied with Nurses, the two classes of nurses, _i.e._ trained
- nurses and probationers, be maintained, the cost of the Department
- may be considerably lessened by training nurses for other
- hospitals; the cost of the probationers being either paid for by a
- Government grant, or by the bodies for whom the nurses may be
- trained.
-
- THOMAS H. SATCHELL,
- RICHARD BRIGHT,
- THOMAS OWEN.
-
- _March 15, 1867._
-
-This report was unanimously adopted by the Workhouse Committee and
-by the Vestry; and already the new system has been extended to the
-Female Wards. It is in contemplation to extend it also to the Fever
-Hospital, as soon as a sufficient number of suitable nurses shall
-have been trained.
-
-It will be observed that the report contemplates the training of
-probationers for other Workhouse Infirmaries. And it is, indeed, to
-be hoped that in this and other ways the Liverpool Workhouse
-Hospital may serve as a normal school, from which the system there
-adopted may spread. The _special_ expenses of such a school would
-naturally be borne by the parishes which profited by its services in
-educating nurses for them, or by the Government. But this point is
-one which, as yet, has hardly demanded practical consideration.
-
-The experiment whose results have been recorded, could hardly have
-been tried at all—certainly could not have achieved such rapid
-success—had it not been for the powerful and liberal assistance of
-Miss Nightingale, and the Trustees of the Nightingale Fund. Feeling
-how very important was the extension of the system of superior
-professional nursing, now gradually gaining ground in general
-hospitals, to workhouses, they sent, to assist in the initial
-experiment made in this direction, a lady superintendent and twelve
-superior nurses—a very expensive and quite invaluable contribution.
-To the Liverpool Vestry and its officers belongs the credit of
-having overcome all the difficulties, and persevered in spite of all
-the discouraging incidents, which necessarily attended an attempt to
-introduce a new system of management into such an institution as a
-Workhouse Hospital, combining as it does two subjects so different
-in their aspects and conditions of treatment, so difficult to deal
-with together, as pauperism and sickness. Of the Lady Superintendent
-I shall say little. When a lady leaves a happy home, and goes
-through a long and laborious course of training to fit herself for
-such a situation, purely because, feeling that she possessed the
-capacity for nursing, and the requisite health, energy, strength,
-and spirits, she desired to devote such powers to the service of
-those who stood most in need of them, human praise or criticism of
-her choice is out of place. One of the incidental results of her
-exertions has to her, no doubt, been even a higher reward than that
-improvement in the condition of the sick, in their progress towards
-recovery, and their material comfort, which has been the direct
-object of her labours. The improvement in the tone and behaviour of
-the patients has been wonderful. Many of the inmates of a pauper
-hospital are persons of the worst character, and its wards, under
-the control of pauper nurses, often present scenes so disgusting
-that the respectable poor shrink from them with utter abhorrence,
-and after once becoming acquainted with them, will often rather die
-than return thither. When the trained nurses were first introduced,
-the most offensive language was frequently heard in the wards; and
-the Lady Superintendent has repeatedly been obliged to call upon the
-Governor two or three times during one Sunday to use his authority
-to put a stop to actual fighting. Now, though his support is always
-promptly rendered, she is rarely compelled to apply for it; the
-feeling of the wards promptly suppresses all offensive language or
-unseemly behaviour in the presence of the nurses. The following
-letter from Sir H. Verney, Chairman of the Nightingale Committee,
-serves to illustrate the influence of the nurses upon the conduct of
-the patients; he came down to Liverpool to inspect the Hospital, and
-ascertain the progress of the work:—
-
- Liverpool, _October 3, 1866_.
-
- My dear Sir,
-
- By the kindness of Mr. Carr I have paid a visit to the Workhouse,
- and have been greatly interested by remarking the change among the
- male pauper sick, effected since I was here about two years since.
- I conclude that this is owing to the nursing by a class of females
- so entirely different to those who nursed the male paupers at that
- time, and who still nurse the female sick. I have always seen that
- the influence of respectable and well-educated females over the
- most debased men is very striking. Men of that character,
- accustomed to intercourse with only degraded women, feel the
- restraining and humanizing power of virtuous and well-mannered
- females. They have never been admitted into intercourse with such
- before, and they are most beneficially affected by it. I have been
- told that the police officers, who sometimes come to the Workhouse
- on business, and who see the sick paupers, are much astonished.
- They see the men whom they have known as the very worst
- characters, conducting themselves with propriety and decency, and
- giving no cause of complaint.
-
- I am sure that the Workhouse Committee must rejoice and feel
- thankful that there is such a change in the condition of the poor
- creatures brought under their rule.
-
- Miss Jones, and her nurses and probationers, must have had much
- difficulty at first—indeed their work is still very trying; but
- the improved demeanour of the men must be highly gratifying and
- encouraging to them. I walked through the female sick wards; they
- were clean and sweet, but I could not help contrasting the pauper
- nurses who attended them, with the intelligent-looking respectable
- attendants of the men.
-
- I thank you for the note of introduction which procured admission
- for me, and
-
- I am,
- Yours very faithfully,
- HARRY VERNEY.
-
-Such, and so entirely satisfactory to the Guardians, were the
-results of the experiment of nursing by trained nurses, as tried for
-two years in the Male Wards of the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. It
-is in order to render those results, the experience acquired in this
-initiatory attempt, available for the assistance and encouragement
-of others, that they have been thus briefly recorded. Much more
-might have been said; but what is here set down is sufficient to
-explain all that practical men would wish to know, and it would be
-presumption to waste the time of such men with comments and
-inferences which they are perfectly able to make for themselves.
-
-One suggestion, in conclusion, I may be permitted to offer. In all
-unions or parishes where additional accommodation may be required,
-whether for patients or for healthy paupers, it is eminently
-desirable that in providing it regard should be had to the entire
-separation, at once or at a future time, of the sick and infirm from
-the able-bodied, as will be the case, at least partially, under the
-new régime introduced in the Metropolis by Mr. Gathorne Hardy’s
-Bill. Miss Nightingale has from the first held and expressed a
-strong opinion in favour of the separation of the hospital and
-workhouse administrations. The Governor of the Liverpool Workhouse,
-Mr. Carr, expressed himself decidedly in the same sense; and the
-Chairman of the Workhouse Committee and of the Sub-Committee
-appointed to superintend the Hospital, has been induced by practical
-experience warmly to advocate the absolute separation of the
-Workhouse and the Infirmary. So large a proportion of the
-able-bodied inmates of the workhouse are drunken, lazy, and vicious,
-that, if the poor-law relief is not to become a temptation and an
-injury to the honest and struggling poor, the discipline must be
-almost of a penal character. The paramount object must be to make
-the workhouse, if not absolutely unpleasant, less agreeable than the
-condition of laborious and striving poverty. On the other hand, in a
-hospital the paramount and almost the only object is to promote
-recovery and to mitigate suffering; all other considerations yield
-to this, and consequently the treatment must necessarily be liberal
-in spirit and indulgent in fact. The modes of treatment necessary
-for the good management of the hospital patient and of the
-able-bodied pauper, respectively, are distinct—almost opposite: the
-infirmary and the workhouse must be controlled on divergent, and
-even contrary principles; and by bringing the two together under one
-roof and one administration, they injure each other. The indulgence
-of the infirmary creeps into the workhouse, or the sternness of
-workhouse rules cripples the benevolent energy which should rule the
-infirmary. And the treatment of the able-bodied pauper becomes too
-lax, or he is tempted to scheme, and does scheme, to get himself
-transferred to the more comfortable quarters close at hand; a desire
-so prevalent as to give rise to malingering—the wilful production of
-disease: while, partly no doubt in order to counteract this
-tendency, there is in such mixed establishments an unconscious
-disposition to treat the hospital patient with the same stern
-economy that is justly made the rule in dealing with able-bodied
-pauperism, but which, in the infirmary, is not only cruel, but in
-the long run is not truly economical. Another most serious evil is
-entailed upon the hospital by connexion with the workhouse. The
-habits and traditions prevalent among the habitual
-paupers—able-bodied paupers—in the workhouse (at least in the
-workhouse of a large town), are too often deeply infected with
-cunning, deception, and dishonesty of all sorts, against which
-strict precaution and stern repression are requisite; and it is most
-important that no communication should be allowed, whereby these
-habits of vice and stratagem might be introduced into the hospital,
-where indulgence is the rule, and where many things strictly denied
-to the inmates of the workhouse, as stimulants for instance, are
-necessarily permitted. The introduction of workhouse tricks into a
-hospital, where they cannot be met by workhouse control, must bring
-in an element of confusion, disorder, and waste, and therefore the
-intercommunication which might introduce those tricks should be as
-effectually prevented as possible, which it cannot be while the two
-institutions are, as at present, combined. The two systems—to use an
-English word in its French sense—demoralize each other; and even in
-the English sense, their union demoralizes the individuals subject
-to each.
-
-When this is better understood and more clearly apprehended, as it
-soon will be, through the experience of several Unions in which the
-separation has been already resolved on—it is probable that it will
-be enforced by law. This may be expected to take place in no very
-long time; and then it will be found that any expenditure incurred
-in providing increased accommodation on a plan which does not
-recognise the necessity of separation has been, in part at least,
-thrown away; and the work will have to be done, and the money to be
-spent, over again.
-
-
-
-
- Footnotes
-
-
-[1]Liverpool is a seaport, and a receptacle where the poverty and
- vice of Great Britain and Ireland seem to accumulate; and it is
- probably on this account that the able-bodied female paupers are
- peculiarly vicious and worthless.
-
-[2]Among the replies of the London medical officers, one which
- seemed especially to impress the Sub-Committee was given by the
- senior honorary medical officer of St. Thomas’s. Mr. Hagger
- asked him, “If you had to cure the sick by contract at so much a
- head, and had to choose between unpaid pauper nurses allotted to
- you gratis, or paying yourself for skilled nurses, which would
- you choose?” “To pay for skilled nurses, certainly,” was the
- unhesitating answer.
-
-[3]In the opinion of the medical men of the Liverpool Workhouse
- Hospital, 647 of its present number of patients would be
- admissible to an ordinary hospital, and
-
- Men—Medical 40
- ” Surgical 80
- Women—Medical 40
- ” Surgical 60
- 220 would not be admissible.
-
-[4]In a training school for superior nurses, it will _never_ be
- desirable to employ pauper under-nurses, as they interfere with
- the efficiency of the probationers, who are being trained as
- superior nurses. The latter are apt to delegate to the paupers
- much of the hard but most instructive part of their work. In
- ordinary workhouse hospitals, when there are no probationers, a
- certain number of pauper assistants may perhaps be useful in
- aiding thoroughly trained nurses.
-
-
- LONDON: R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.
-
-
-
-
- Transcriber’s Notes
-
-
---Retained publication information from the printed exemplar (this
- eBook is in the public domain in the country of publication.)
-
---Only in the text versions, delimited italicized text with
- _underscores_.
-
---Silently corrected several typos.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's Workhouse Nursing, by Florence Nightingale
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Workhouse Nursing, by Florence Nightingale
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Workhouse Nursing
- The story of a successful experiment
-
-Author: Florence Nightingale
-
-Release Date: November 11, 2015 [EBook #50432]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKHOUSE NURSING ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by MWS, Stephen Hutcheson, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
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-
-
- WORKHOUSE NURSING:
-
-
- THE STORY OF A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT.
-
-
- _London:_
- MACMILLAN AND CO.
- 1867.
-
-
-The accompanying account of the Improvements introduced by the Select
-Vestry of Liverpool into the Workhouse Hospital Wards under their
-control, may perhaps be interesting to you, and possibly might prove
-suggestive and serviceable, if similar improvements should be required
-in your district.
-
-
-As the time and strength of the Lady Superintendent of the Nurses
-employed in the Workhouse Hospital are very fully occupied, enquiries or
-requests for further information should not be addressed to her, but to
-the Chairman of the Workhouse Committee of the Select Vestry (and of the
-Hospital Sub-Committee),
-
- T. H. SATCHELL, Esq.
- _48, Lord Street_,
- Liverpool;
-
- _Or_,
-
- H. J. HAGGER, Esq.
- _Parish Offices_,
- Liverpool.
-
-
-
-
- WORKHOUSE NURSING:
- _THE STORY OF A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT._
-
-
-The following pages contain a brief account of the experiment
-successfully tried by the Select Vestry of Liverpool (the guardians of
-the poor)--the introduction of trained Nurses into the male wards of the
-Workhouse Infirmary. That experiment having resulted so successfully as
-to induce the Vestry to extend the system to the remainder of the
-infirmary, it may be interesting to those who are concerned in the
-management of workhouses elsewhere to learn something of its history and
-progress. It is the writer's object to explain--
-
-1. The grounds on which the Vestry were led to undertake the experiment,
-as stated in the preliminary report of Mr. Carr, the governor, and that
-of the sub-committee of the Vestry appointed to consider the proposed
-scheme; and the replies received to inquiries addressed by them to
-institutions and persons connected with the training and employment of
-skilled nurses in London and Liverpool, with letters on the subject from
-Miss Nightingale and Sir John M^cNeill.
-
-2. The results of the experiment, so far as hitherto ascertained.
-
-The Liverpool Vestry had previously made considerable efforts to improve
-the workhouse infirmaries. The medical men had been encouraged to make
-requisition for every material appliance that could facilitate the cure
-of the sick; and paid female officers were appointed at the rate of one
-to each 150 or 200 beds, to superintend the giving of medicines and
-stimulants, and so forth: but of course so small a number, even had they
-been trained nurses, could do no real nursing, and could exercise little
-supervision over the twenty drunken or unreliable[1] pauper nurses who
-were under the nominal direction of each paid officer. An appeal was
-made to the Vestry to consummate the good work they had thus partially
-commenced, and it was urged that Liverpool should assume the lead in the
-task of workhouse reform. The following considerations were submitted to
-the Select Vestry:--
-
- "That Liverpool could commence this movement with great effect, and
- with the certainty that her example would be widely followed.
-
- "That she had in times past taken a leading part in such reform. The
- introduction of the New Poor Law produced little change in Liverpool;
- so many of its wisest provisions were already in operation there, some
- of them for twenty or thirty years.
-
- "That she had already established a system of attention to the sick
- poor in their own houses, which, if only by restoring heads of
- families to health and work, saved the parish many times the sum that
- it cost to private benevolence.
-
- "That, lastly and especially, the proposed reform ought to commence in
- Liverpool, because in her workhouse the guardians had already, by
- their liberality, provided the sick with everything in the shape of
- diet and medical comforts that could conduce to recovery; and what was
- now wanting to give effect to their wise benevolence was, that their
- system should be administered and their intentions carried out by
- efficient and reliable nurses, in the stead of unreliable paupers."
-
-The appeal further urged that--
-
- "Successful efforts have been made in many directions to improve the
- nursing of the sick, and the workhouses must soon be the object of
- similar endeavours. Those poor sufferers whose disease is protracted
- and hopeless are refused admission into ordinary hospitals, and must
- come to the workhouse; and the mere duration of the illness is in such
- cases sufficient to reduce to poverty the most industrious, careful,
- and temperate--men who, while they could work, paid regularly their
- contribution to the poor-rate. Surely, these are entitled to at least
- as great care as that which sickness at once assures to the imprisoned
- felon, however criminal, for whom well-paid nurses are provided by the
- State.
-
- "As to the other class of inmates of the workhouse infirmary--those
- whose ailments are curable--mere economy requires that the most
- efficient means should be taken to cure them as speedily as possible,
- so as to preserve them and their families from becoming paupers.
-
- "Thus justice and expediency alike counsel the introduction into the
- workhouse of the best known system of nursing. Probably nothing which
- the skill and kindness of medical men can do, no food or physical
- appliances which the guardians can supply, no oversight or care which
- they, acting through pauper nurses, can bring to bear, are wanting in
- the Liverpool workhouse; but it is to be feared that much of this
- care, liberality, and thought fails of its object for want of a
- sufficient number of reliable and duly qualified nurses to carry out
- the instructions given, to administer food and medicine to the
- patients, to dress their wounds, and so forth."
-
-This appeal was supported by two letters of Miss Nightingale and Sir
-John M^cNeill, G.C.B., President of the Board of Supervision (the Scotch
-Poor Law Board).
-
-
- _Letter from_ Miss Nightingale.
-
- 115, Park Street, W.
- _February 5, 1864._
-
- My dear Sir,
-
- I will not delay another day expressing how much I admire, and how
- deeply I sympathize with the Workhouse plan.
-
- First let me say that Workhouse sick and Workhouse Infirmaries
- require quite as much care as (I had almost said more than)
- Hospital sick. There is an even greater work to be accomplished in
- Workhouse Infirmaries than in Hospitals.
-
- In days long ago, when I visited in one of the largest London
- Workhouse Infirmaries, I became fully convinced of this.
-
- How gladly would I have become the Matron of a Workhouse.
-
- But of a Visitor's visit, the only result is to break the
- Visitor's heart. She sees how much could be done and cannot do it.
-
- Liverpool is of all places the one to try this great Reform in.
- Its example is sure to be followed. It has an admirable body of
- Guardians; it is a thorough practical people; it has, or soon will
- have again, money.
-
- Lord Russell once said (what is quite true), that the Poor Law was
- never meant to supersede private charity.
-
- But whatever may be the difficulties about Pauperism, in two
- things most people agree--viz. that Workhouse sick ought to have
- the best practical nursing, as well as Hospital sick--and that a
- good wise Matron may save many of these from life-long pauperism,
- by first nursing them well, and then rousing them to exertion, and
- helping them to employment.
-
- In such a scheme as is wisely proposed, there would be four
- elements.
-
- 1. The Guardians, one of whose functions is to check pauperism.
- They could not be expected to incur greater cost than at present,
- _unless_ it is proved that it cures or saves life.
-
- 2. The Visiting or Managing Committee of the Guardians, whose
- authority must not (and need not) in any way be interfered with.
-
- 3. The Governor, the Medical Officer, and Chaplain.
-
- 4. (And under the Governor) the proposed Superintendent of Nurses
- and her nursing staff.
-
- There is no reason why all these parts of the machine should not
- work together.
-
- The funds are provided to pay the extra nursing for a time.
-
- The difficulty is to find the Lady to govern it.
-
- When appointed, she must be authorized--indeed appointed--by the
- Guardians. She must be their Officer; and must be invested by the
- Governor with authority to superintend her Nurses in conformity
- with regulations to be agreed upon.
-
- So far, I see no more difficulty than there was in settling our
- relations as Nurses to the government officials in the Crimean
- War.
-
- The cases are somewhat similar.
-
- As to the funds, it is just possible that eventually the Guardians
- might take all the cost on themselves, as soon as they saw the
- great advantages and economy of good nursing.
-
- If Liverpool succeeds, the system is quite sure to extend itself.
-
- The Fever Hospital is one of the Workhouse Infirmaries. That is
- the place to shew what skilful nursing can do. The patients are
- not all paupers. How many families might be rescued from pauperism
- by saving the lives of their heads, and by helping the
- hard-working to more speedy convalescence!
-
- Hopefully yours,
- (Signed) FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.
-
-
-_Extract from a letter from the_ Right Honourable Sir John M^cNeill,
- G.C.B., _dated Granton House, Edinburgh, 28th Feb., 1864_.
-
- There can be no doubt, I think, that it would be a mistake to have
- pauper nurses mixed up with paid nurses, and I think I expressed
- that opinion when we conversed about those things. Paupers might,
- however, be employed to scrub and to do other menial work, under
- the orders of the paid nurses. If the paid nurses are to do much
- good they must have a recognised authority in their wards. Without
- authority there cannot be due responsibility, and things must get
- into confusion. A nurse carrying out the instructions of the
- medical officer must have authority to do so, and resistance to
- that authority must be treated as a breach of discipline.
-
- To put this upon a right footing from the first, would be
- indispensable to success. The more a nurse does by influence, and
- kindly influence, the better; but dealing with the promiscuous
- inmates of a workhouse, the knowledge that there is authority in
- reserve to be exercised if necessary, prevents the necessity of
- resorting to it, and makes the patients duly appreciate the
- kindness which keeps it in reserve.
-
- With regard to all such matters, a great deal will depend upon the
- good-will, the good sense, and good feeling of the Governor and
- Matron, but especially of the Governor. He can do much to promote
- or to mar the success of the experiment, and so can the medical
- men; but if they be men of sense and right feeling, they cannot
- fail to perceive how vast an addition to their own comfort the
- permanent establishment of such a system as you propose to
- introduce experimentally, must produce.
-
- The position of a medical man dependent for the execution of his
- instructions upon nurses who are neither intelligent nor
- trustworthy, is very painful, and tends to deteriorate his own
- character, both as a man and as a practitioner, by rendering him
- callous to preventible suffering which he is denied the proper
- means of relieving, and by compelling him to forego the use of
- remedies which require intelligence and conscientious care in
- administering them. The house Governor, if he be a conscientious
- man, must be kept in continual anxiety about the conduct of
- ignorant, and often worthless pauper nurses in the hospital, and
- is driven at length to be satisfied with a low moral and
- intellectual standard in the nurses, and a corresponding standard
- of care and comfort in the hospital.
-
-The Select Vestry took the subject into their serious consideration,
-and instituted most careful inquiries in various quarters. Among
-other steps, they called for a report on the probable operation of
-the proposed system from Mr. Carr, the Governor of the Workhouse.
-That report ran as follows:--
-
-
- _Extract from the Journal of the Governor of the Workhouse._
-
- Liverpool, Thursday, _April 14, 1864_.
-
- In compliance with the instructions of the Workhouse Committee, I
- have carefully considered the proposal made to the Committee by a
- Liverpool gentleman, on the subject of nursing the sick in the
- Workhouse Hospital, and beg in reference thereto to report--
-
- That, practically, the proposal amounts to this--that there shall
- not be any pauper nurses in the hospital, but that there shall be
- appointed in lieu a staff of duly qualified paid nurses and
- servants, with a head superintendent, under whom the whole of the
- nursing of the sick shall be conducted on the best known
- principles.
-
- This proposal rests its claim to favourable consideration on the
- presumption that the present system of nursing the sick in the
- Workhouse Hospital is defective. The Committee are aware what that
- system is. It may thus be briefly stated. Certain wards of the
- workhouse are set apart as hospital wards. They do not form an
- hospital worked as a whole, but are divided into five portions,
- each forming a distinct set of wards, in close proximity to the
- wards of the healthy paupers, and in five different parts of the
- workhouse. These five sets of wards I shall call the Workhouse
- Hospital. The hospital is divided into eleven sections. At the
- head of each section there is an intelligent paid superintendent
- nurse, and under each such superintendent nurse there is placed a
- staff of pauper nurses, with the aid of whom she is required to
- work her division, according to certain rules and regulations made
- and provided for that purpose. A copy of these rules is appended
- hereto; from which it will be seen that the burden of the
- responsibility of carrying out the orders of the medical officers,
- devolves upon the head nurses or superintendents of divisions. The
- pauper nurses clean up the wards, carry the food, and give general
- assistance to the superintendent--the duties of nursing in detail,
- that is to say, the bedside nursing, falling chiefly upon them.
- They are not permitted, however, to serve any patient with
- stimulants, beer, porter, or medicines requiring exactness or
- care; all such duties are discharged by the superintendent nurse.
- The proposal now made to the Committee, means that the paid staff
- shall be increased, so that the sick shall be cared for by
- responsible officers only, and not left, even partially, to the
- care of pauper nurses.
-
- There is no doubt that pauper nurses are unreliable, inefficient,
- and many of them very worthless; and it is only by careful
- watching, and the utmost stringency of regulations, that they can
- be made serviceable in the hospital. No stringency of regulations,
- however, could guard against the most flagrant abuses, if these
- women were employed to discharge duties of trust, such as serving
- out the stimulants, &c. so that their services in attending upon
- the sick are limited and common-place. There is therefore, in my
- mind, no doubt, and I cannot see how any doubt can exist, that to
- remove these women, and appoint in their places women of
- character, trained as nurses, will tend to improve the position of
- the sick, and more rapidly restore many of them to health.
-
- To displace these pauper women, however, involves a complete
- change in all the hospital arrangements, and suggests the
- difficulty of finding and keeping up a supply of suitable nurses
- to undertake the work at, as it would no doubt often happen, short
- notice. The Committee are aware, too, that owing to the fact that
- the paupers have hitherto been required to attend upon the sick,
- the accommodation for paid officers is very limited, and that the
- adoption of the proposal would render it necessary at once to
- provide additional rooms for the additional staff. The Committee
- are also aware that the Workhouse Hospital differs from other
- hospitals in this--that it forms a part only of a mixed
- establishment, and that there are great difficulties to be
- overcome in completely cutting off every connexion or species of
- intercourse between the hospital departments and the healthy
- inmates, without which the scheme under consideration could hardly
- succeed. If any good is to result from the adoption of this
- proposal, the sick should be placed absolutely and entirely in the
- hands of a paid staff, without the assistance, in any form, of any
- one of the pauper inmates. Cut off the hospital department from
- the healthy wards; and do not, under any pretext, suffer
- communication between the sick and the healthy, and you strike at
- the root of every species of workhouse abuse; but if, under any
- pretext, you suffer a large number of healthy paupers to pass
- daily into the sick departments, as they now do, the adoption of
- the proposal will effect little good.
-
- But the question has to be still further investigated on the
- ground of expense; and it has to be decided the number, pay,
- allowances, and accommodation of the necessary staff to work it
- out. Now, although I entertain very strong opinions as to the
- undesirability of employing paupers to discharge responsible
- duties of any kind, because to do so destroys the value of the
- workhouse test, and tends to reconcile them to pauperism; and
- although I view the particular work of nurse-tending as the very
- worst kind of work for paupers, inasmuch as, while so employed,
- they are better fed, have more freedom of action than they
- otherwise would, and can make their places emolumental--thereby
- holding out a positive inducement to pauperism; and although I
- have no doubt that the displacement of these women would be
- followed by the immediate application for discharges by a large
- per-centage of them; and although, at this moment, many other
- weighty considerations press upon me in favour of the immediate
- adoption of the proposal under consideration, I feel unwilling, in
- view of the difficulties to be overcome, some of which I have
- indicated, to incur the weighty responsibility of recommending
- such a course on my own unaided judgment. I have abstained,
- therefore, from taking up the question of expense, &c. but take
- the liberty respectfully to suggest, that a sub-committee be
- appointed to report upon the whole question in all its details. It
- shall be my anxious desire and pleasure to assist the labours of
- such sub-committee by every means in my power.
-
-According to the recommendation of Mr. Carr, a Sub-Committee was
-appointed, consisting of men of great experience in parochial
-business, who went up to London, and had interviews with the medical
-and other officers of the two metropolitan hospitals where nursing
-has been brought to the greatest perfection--St. Thomas's and King's
-College Hospitals. Finding that some of these gentlemen wished for
-more information respecting the Workhouse Hospital system before
-they would venture to express decided opinions as to the economical
-results of the proposed reform, the Liverpool Visitors drew up a
-statement on several points affecting this question, with written
-inquiries, to which answers were returned, verbally or in writing,
-by the gentlemen consulted. This statement, with the replies which
-it elicited, is here given at length:--[2]
-
-
- STATEMENT AND QUESTIONS OF THE LIVERPOOL SUB-COMMITTEE.
-
- The population of the Parish of Liverpool is about 270,000.
-
- The expenditure from the poor's-rate in and about the relief of
- the poor is about 100,000_l_. per annum.
-
- Of this about 40,000_l_. is distributed in out-door relief as
- money and bread. (Of course sickness is one great cause of persons
- seeking relief, though to what extent this cause operates, even
- directly, I cannot on so short a notice ascertain or even
- estimate.)
-
- The expenses (direct) of treating the out-door sick are:--
-
- Salaries of Medical Officers, &c. 1,800
- Medicines, &c. 1,378
- 3,178
-
- The cost of maintaining the Workhouse Hospital may be estimated as
- follows:--
-
- Maintenance of Patients 9,700
- Salaries of Medical Officers 485
- Medicines, &c. 1,050
- 11,235
-
- The Hospital contains accommodation for over 1,000 patients, and
- has often 1,000 in it. The cases at present are:--
-
- Medical 485
- Surgical 345
- Fever 120
- Smallpox 20
-
- The weekly discharges are from twenty to thirty per cent. of the
- whole number in the hospital.[3]
-
- The present workhouse staff consists of fourteen paid officers
- (who are superintendents, but not trained nurses), and about 150
- paupers acting as nurses, but not paid. It has been proposed to
- add a trained hospital matron and trained nurses, such as those
- trained in the Nightingale School, and assistant nurses, so as to
- give one trained day-nurse and one paid assistant to about every
- three pauper nurses, and a trained night-nurse on every flat; it
- is further proposed to pay the paupers who act as nurses, wages.
- The cost of this would be about 2,000_l_. per annum.
-
- Does your experience of hospitals lead you to believe that the
- cost of this improved system would be "in part," "wholly," or
- "more than" repaid to the ratepayers by curing people more
- quickly, by curing those who otherwise might have become chronic
- cases, and by enabling those to resume their work who must
- otherwise have remained or died, and by thus diminishing the
- duration or amount of that part of pauperism which is the result
- of sickness?
-
-
- REPLIES OF PHYSICIANS, &c. OF ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL.
-
-
-1. _Reply of_ R. H. Goolden, Esq., M.D.
-
-
-"I have no doubt but that the plan suggested, if properly carried
-out, would be in the end a saving to the ratepayers, the restoration
-to health relieving the parish of constant burdens."
-
-
-2. _Reply of_ John Simon, Esq.
-
-
-"I do not feel myself competent to measure at all exactly what might
-be the pecuniary result of the proposed system. But in my opinion
-the substitution of skilled for unskilled attendance would be of
-great advantage to the sick, and would of course tend to diminish
-that part of the pauperism which results from sickness."
-
-
-3. _Reply of_ Sydney Jones, Esq., M.B.
-
-
-"In my opinion the improved system of nursing recommended would
-amply repay the expense incurred."
-
-
-4. _Reply of_ J. S. Bristowe, Esq., M.D.
-
-
-"I believe that the introduction of paid nurses into the Liverpool
-Workhouse Infirmary would be of inestimable benefit to the sick poor
-received into the institution, and would thus amply justify the
-expense which it is proposed to incur. I also think it very probable
-that the cost of nursing would be repaid in many other ways to the
-ratepayers."
-
-
-5. _Reply of_ Edward Clapton, Esq., M.D.
-
-
-"I believe it would be quite repaid."
-
-
- REPLIES FROM THE PHYSICIANS, &c. OF KING'S COLLEGE HOSPITAL.
-
-
-1. _Reply of_ Henry Smith, Esq. _Assistant Surgeon_.
-
-
-"I believe, from a long experience of hospitals and other
-institutions, that the cost of an improved system of nursing as
-proposed for the Liverpool Workhouse Hospital would certainly be 'in
-part' repaid by restoring the patients to health more quickly."
-
-
-2. _Copy of a Letter from_ Miss Jones, _Lady Superintendent of St.
-John's House Nursing Schools, and Matron of King's College
-Hospital_.
-
- King's College Hospital, _May 4, 1864_.
-
- Dear Sir,
-
- The inclosed paper was sent to me yesterday, with the request that
- I would obtain from some of the medical staff of this Hospital
- answers to the question proposed at the end of the paper, in order
- to enable the Vestry in some degree to judge whether that body
- would be justified, or otherwise, in sanctioning the introduction
- to their Workhouse Hospital of an improved system of nursing the
- sick, at the probable annual money cost named in the inclosed
- paper.
-
- I have accordingly submitted the paper to as many of the medical
- staff as I could see in the short time.
-
- I inclose a note from Mr. Henry Smith, one of the surgeons, who
- has had considerable experience as to the loss and gain of good
- and bad nursing.
-
- Dr. Wm. O. Priestly, the Physician Accoucheur to this Hospital,
- formerly of Middlesex Hospital, had not time during his visit to
- do more than read the paper and give me a verbal answer. He said,
- "I have no hesitation in saying that the saving would be certain
- and great."
-
- The Assistant Physician Accoucheur, who has until last week had
- charge of the medical patients here, as House Physician (Mr. H. L.
- Kempthorne), says, "The value of trained efficient nursing cannot
- be overrated in the management of acute diseases, and especially
- fevers, and would speak for itself in the saving of life, humanly
- speaking.
-
- "In chronic cases, the eye of the trained nurse would soon detect
- the malingerer, and thus save the parish the expense of
- maintaining one who could well keep himself.
-
- "In the prevention and amelioration of disease this plan would
- soon show its importance in the effects of cleanliness,
- ventilation, and other points carried out systematically and
- intelligently.
-
- "The moral influence of the trained nurses by precept and example
- must in time diffuse itself through the medium of the pauper
- nurses to the paupers in hospital, the workhouse, and thence to
- the parish at large."
-
- I regret my inability to obtain fuller testimony to-day, but
- professional men are busy, and their visits to the hospital only
- on stated days.
-
- If I can be of further use in any way, pray command me.
-
- I am, Sir,
- Very faithfully yours,
- (Signed) M. J.
- _Superintendent of St. John's._
-
-After collecting and considering all the information within their
-reach, the Sub-Committee reported as follows:--
-
- The Sub-Committee appointed on the 14th ultimo to consider and
- report as to a suggested alteration in the Staff of the Workhouse
- Hospital, report,
-
- That the superiority, as nurses, of trained, experienced, and
- responsible women to the pauper women upon whom, under the present
- system, the actual nursing of the sick inmates of the workhouse
- devolves, is so apparent, that they conceive it to be unnecessary
- to offer any further observations upon this part of the subject.
- The points which have mainly occupied your Committee's attention
- are the following:--
-
- 1. The cost of introducing a staff of trained nurses into the
- Workhouse Hospital, or any portion thereof.
- 2. The practicability of providing sufficient accommodation in the
- Workhouse for such an increase of officers.
- 3. The supply of trained nurses.
-
-1. Your Committee are of opinion that the substitution throughout
-the Workhouse Hospital of trained nurses, for the present pauper
-nurses, would involve a direct expenditure of from 2,000_l._ to
-2,500_l._ per annum. Should it be decided, in the first instance, to
-introduce the nurses into the male hospital only, it is probable
-that a sum of 800_l._ per annum would be found sufficient for the
-purpose. Evidence has been laid before the Committee to show that in
-those hospitals where the improved system of nursing has been
-introduced, the increased cost thereof has been more than
-compensated for by the saving, from the reduction of the time during
-which the patients are under treatment--the effect, as is alleged,
-of good and efficient nursing. Whilst your Committee admit the force
-of the argument, that if this be so in the case of hospitals, where
-the sick only are burdens upon the funds of the institution, much
-more must it be so in the case of the parish, where, as often
-happens, the whole family are chargeable upon the rates in
-consequence of the sickness of its head; they think it necessary to
-point out that one great difference between the workhouse hospital
-and an ordinary infirmary consists in this, that while in the latter
-(as a rule) none but acute and supposed curable cases are admitted,
-the former is, in many cases, the refuge of those who, as
-incurables, cannot gain admittance to other asylums. There can,
-however, be no doubt that the saving resulting from the rapidity and
-completeness of the cures effected by good nursing, will be a
-considerable set-off against the increased cost of the nursing
-staff; though your Committee can offer no decided opinion as to the
-probable extent of the saving so effected.
-
-2. Your Committee believe that accommodation equal at least, if not
-superior, to that afforded to the nurses in the London hospitals,
-can be provided in the Workhouse at a moderate outlay. It is
-estimated that, for the male hospital, a sum of from 400_l._ to
-500_l._ would suffice to provide the rooms and to furnish them.
-
-3. With reference to the supply of suitable nurses, your Committee
-have to report that, as the authorities of the Nightingale Training
-School for nurses have offered to render to the Select Vestry all
-the assistance in their power in obtaining trained nurses, no great
-difficulty on this point need be apprehended.
-
-Were your Committee as sanguine as some of the hospital authorities
-whom they have consulted, as to the happy results to be expected
-from the introduction of trained nurses into the Workhouse, they
-would at once, with the utmost confidence, recommend that the whole
-of the hospital should, at the cost of the parish, be supplied with
-this class of officers; but, looking upon it as they do, as an
-experiment (at least in its economical results), they unanimously
-recommend that the system should, in the first instance, be tried in
-the male hospital.
-
- J. W. CROPPER, _Chairman_.
-
-_May 5, 1864._
-
-The report of the Sub-Committee met with the approval of the Vestry.
-Some delay in the adoption of its recommendations was caused by a
-severe outbreak of fever in the town, which for the time absorbed
-all the resources of the Vestry and its officers. But on the 18th of
-May, 1865, a Lady Superintendent who had received a thorough
-training at Kaiserswerth and St. Thomas's, twelve Nightingale nurses
-from St. Thomas's, eighteen probationers, and fifty-two of the old
-pauper nurses were placed in charge of the patients in the male
-wards of the Workhouse Infirmary. By the judicious management of Mr.
-Carr, the most admirable arrangements were made for the
-accommodation of the nurses. Each superior nurse had a little room
-to herself, and the ex-pauper nurses were entirely separated from
-the other inmates of the Workhouse. It was hoped that by taking the
-best of the able-bodied inmates, separating them from the other
-paupers, and paying them small wages (say 5_l._ a year) they might
-be made available as assistant nurses, and that many of them might
-be elevated into independence and usefulness. It will be seen from
-the foregoing report of the Governor (p. 10), that he always
-distrusted this part of the plan adopted; and after the system had
-been at work a year, this attempt to utilize pauper nurses in a
-workhouse hospital was found to have utterly failed. It was proved
-that in a town like Liverpool, with very few exceptions, those
-able-bodied women only become inmates of the Workhouse who are
-either tainted in character, or are exceptionally ill-educated and
-inefficient. The experiment, however, was not wholly useless. It
-conclusively established two facts: that such women are utterly
-unfit to be trusted as nurses; and that their employment in that
-capacity does not effect all the saving that might be supposed. It
-might be thought that the choice lay between such employment and
-maintaining the pauper in idleness, while paying a nurse in her
-stead. But it was found--as the Governor had always predicted--that
-when sent back from the hospital to the able-bodied wards, nearly
-the whole of these women left the Workhouse, and relieved the parish
-from the charge of their maintenance. Many of these women, when
-employed as nurses, remain in the Workhouse for the sake of what
-they can pick up or extort. And moreover, when they left it, the
-training they had received, such as it was, rendered them more
-intelligent, and perhaps not more unreliable nurses than those
-usually employed by the poor. It is not unlikely that in country
-places the unfitness of able-bodied paupers to become assistant
-nurses may be far less than it has been found to be in a great
-seaport town like Liverpool. They may probably be less universally
-tainted in character, and after a year or two of employment as
-under-nurses they may be able to maintain themselves in that
-capacity out-of-doors, thus not only relieving the parish of their
-own maintenance, but assisting to diminish sickness and pauperism
-among their neighbours. The point is one which must be left to local
-knowledge and experience. It might be well, however, not to promise
-them payment till after some length of probationary service. It was
-always after pay-day that the ex-pauper nurses were most liable to
-get drunk and misbehave.[4] With the exception of the failure of the
-nurses taken from the pauper class, the first year's trial was
-sufficiently successful to induce a continuance of the experiment.
-It was impossible, however, to judge the result by statistics. None
-that were available could be considered as an evidence of success or
-failure, for several reasons. The season was very unhealthy, and to
-relieve the pressure on the space and resources of the hospital,
-steps were taken to treat slight cases outside, as will be seen from
-the following extract from the Minutes of the Finance Committee,
-24th November, 1865:--
-
- "The district medical officers, Dr. Gee, Mr. Barnes, and the
- Governor of the workhouse being in attendance, pursuant to
- resolution of the Workhouse Committee at its meeting yesterday,
- the practicability of limiting the admissions to the Workhouse
- Hospital was considered, and the district medical officers were
- requested to co-operate with the relieving officers in limiting
- such admissions to those cases that cannot be properly treated
- outside the Workhouse."
-
-The endeavour to limit the admissions to serious cases would of
-course affect the returns, both as regards the time taken in curing,
-and the proportion of deaths. Even had there been no exceptional
-disturbing element, there is a defect in the statistics of workhouse
-hospitals which affects all inferences from them, in the absence of
-any careful classified list of cases kept by the medical officers,
-such as might fairly enable one to form a judgment from mere
-statistical tables. These, then, are not reliable as means of
-judgment, unless extending over a long period. The character of
-seasons, and nature of cases admitted, varies so much from year to
-year as to invalidate any deductions, unless founded on complete and
-minutely kept medical records. The following extracts, however, from
-the reports of the Governor, and the surgical and medical officers
-of the Workhouse, bear decisive witness to the value of the "new
-system," especially as contrasted with the "old system," which in
-1865-66 still prevailed in the female wards. All these reports bear
-emphatic testimony to the merits and devotion of the Lady
-Superintendent and her staff. The medical men, it is noteworthy,
-speak strongly of the better discipline and far greater obedience to
-their orders observable where the trained nurses are employed--a
-point the more important because it is that on which, before
-experience has reassured them, medical and other authorities have
-often been most doubtful.
-
-
- _From the Report of the Governor._
-
- Thursday, _May 10, 1866_.
-
- The main feature in the new system of nursing consists in the
- superseding of pauper nurses, and appointing in their places
- competent trained nurses from the Nightingale School. These latter
- to have the assistance of "probationary nurses," or in other
- words, women of intelligence and of good character desirous of
- entering upon the duties of nursing the sick as a profession. A
- third class was also created, designated "Assistants." These were
- selected from the old pauper nurses, and it was decided that they
- should be paid, clothed, and receive rations equal in quality and
- quantity to those issued to the officers of the workhouse. The
- nurses, probationers, and assistants were placed under the control
- of a "Lady Superintendent," who was empowered to employ them in
- the manner to her seeming best for the proper care of the sick.
-
- The Committee will be prepared to hear that the change was
- immediately followed by the most marked improvement in every
- respect. The most casual observer could not avoid perceiving it.
- This applies not only to the state of the wards, the care of the
- sick, but is particularly observable in the demeanour of the
- patients, upon whom the humanizing influences of a body of women
- of character, devotedly discharging their duties, has produced
- evident fruits.
-
- The question has often been asked whether the "new system is
- likely to succeed?" The "old system" meant nothing more than this,
- that old, ignorant, and unreliable pauper women, many of whom were
- of doubtful character, were entrusted with the discharge, without
- pay, of responsible duties. These have been displaced, and active,
- intelligent, reliable women, trained and skilled as nurses, with
- good characters and pay, have been appointed to supersede them. It
- would be a great discredit if these latter did not discharge their
- duties incomparably better than the former could do. That they do
- so I am happy to be in a position to testify.
-
- In the opening paragraph of this report it is stated that
- "assistant nurses" were appointed and placed upon pay from the
- ranks of the paupers. This I was always opposed to. Their
- employment has resulted in complete failure, as the following
- figures will prove. The total number appointed to this date is
- 141. Of these sixty-seven have been dismissed through drunkenness
- and other misconduct, and sixteen have resigned; while it is
- positively true that there is not one of the whole number to whom
- I could entrust the duties of serving out wine or other
- stimulants, or, in fact, any duty requiring the exercise of
- integrity.
-
- The experience of the past year renders it certain that the Poor
- Law, as now existing, offers no impediments to the successful
- working out of the most complete scheme for the efficient nursing
- of the sick, in the manner advocated by the best friends of
- hospital nursing.
-
- (Signed) GEO. CARR.
-
-
- _From the Report of_ Robert Gee, Esq. M.D. _Physician to the
- Workhouse Hospital_.
-
- 5, Abercromby Square, Liverpool,
- _May 10, 1866_.
-
- Sir,
-
- In the medical wards of a general hospital the cases vary so much
- in nature and degree from year to year, as to render it impossible
- to give a reliable statistical comparison of the value of a paid
- as distinguished from an unpaid staff of nurses. I am, therefore,
- necessarily compelled to report in general terms on the nursing of
- the last ten months in the male medical wards; premising that what
- I say in approbation of the new system, and the new staff of
- nurses must not be construed as an unfavourable reflection on the
- _whole_ of the previous staff. The paid superintending nurses of
- departments, and a few of the unpaid pauper nurses, deserve great
- credit for their conduct, though their qualifications for the
- service were decidedly inferior to those of the trained
- "Nightingale" staff.
-
- With regard to the latter I can cordially bear testimony to their
- ability, and to their unwearied and uniformly kind attention to
- the patients under their charge. As to their nursing in its
- specific sense, I may state my belief that in every case my
- directions and those of the House Surgeons have been rigidly
- carried out. The medicines, stimulants, &c. &c. have been
- carefully administered, and the other numerous but less agreeable
- duties have been faithfully and efficiently attended to. Under
- their charge I have perceived a marked improvement in the
- demeanour of the patients--in fact, the discipline of the wards is
- completely changed. There has been no disorder or irregularity,
- but a sense of comfort, order, and quiet pervades the whole
- department. I believe further, that every patient leaving the
- wards has been more or less morally elevated during his location
- there.
-
-
- _From the Report of_ J. H. Barnes, Esq., _Surgeon_.
-
- _March 21, 1866._
-
- Since my connexion with the hospital last August we have had
- somewhat approaching a hundred operations, many of them of a
- serious and dangerous character, requiring not only prompt
- assistance at the time, but most persevering attention night and
- day for a long time after. Almost all these operations have been
- in the male hospital, and I have no hesitation in saying that what
- success has attended them has been greatly owing to the most
- efficient assistance rendered by the trained nurses; and from my
- experience of the assistance received from the pauper nurses, in
- the few cases of operation performed in the female hospital, I
- should feel great diffidence in undertaking on that side such
- operations as I have had on the other side: indeed on one or two
- occasions the pauper nurses ran away, and when induced to assist
- were so nervous and frightened as to be of little service.
-
- Without any wish to speak harshly of the unpaid nurses employed on
- the female side of the hospital (who, I believe, strive to do
- their best, more especially since a feeling of emulation has been
- set up by the introduction of the paid trained nurses, of whom
- they are jealous), I am compelled to state my conviction that on
- that side my directions are not carried out with that necessary
- promptitude and skill that they are on the other side, and that in
- all I do there I feel as if I were working with blunted
- instruments. There is no want of inclination, but simply a want of
- ability. That _integrity of disposition, promptitude of action,
- tact in manipulation, gentleness of demeanour and kindly
- consideration_ necessary to make a nurse are not found, or _to be_
- found in the inmates of a workhouse, and no amount of education
- can work out of them what never was in them. Almost always obtuse,
- and too often unprincipled, as a class they are thoroughly
- unreliable, and quite unfitted to take charge of the sick and
- helpless, or the stimulants necessary for them. On this last point
- I have been informed by a former resident surgeon that he has
- known the pauper nurses appropriate the patient's stimulants, or
- withhold giving to a dying patient that ordered for him, that they
- might take it themselves after his death. It is difficult to bring
- home and prove these things, and I do not wish to say they now
- occur, but if we wish to put such conduct out of the region of
- possibility it can only be done by the employment of persons
- superior to the temptation so to act.
-
- Persons of one class, as a rule, favour their own class, and there
- is a far better chance of double-dealers being detected when under
- the observation and care of a trained nurse, than when under the
- care of one of themselves. That such is the case my own experience
- testifies.
-
- As far, therefore, as my experience extends of the system of
- trained nurses, whether regarding the saving of life, the
- restoration to health, or the relief of the suffering, it has been
- an undoubted success.
-
-These reports were duly considered by the authorities; and after
-some discussion, it was resolved entirely to discontinue, in the
-male hospital ward, the employment of paupers as assistant nurses,
-and to substitute an additional number of probationers. A
-Sub-Committee of the Workhouse Committee was appointed to
-superintend and report upon the working of the system. These
-gentlemen devoted much time and attention to the subject, and at the
-close of the year undertook a minute inquiry into the operation of
-the old and new systems; examining personally the various officers
-of the Workhouse, from the Governor down to the pauper nurses in the
-female wards. Increased experience brought out in a yet stronger
-light the superior advantages of the employment of trained nurses.
-The very able, clear, and conclusive report of the Sub-Committee
-leaves little more to be said on the subject. It determined the
-Vestry to adopt the system in permanence, and to extend it to the
-whole of the Workhouse Infirmary, a year before the period fixed for
-the trial of the experiment had expired. It will be seen that the
-report of the second year's experience has a peculiar value, as
-bearing on the question whether, or how far, women may be competent
-to undertake one of the most delicate and difficult kinds of
-feminine work--one requiring special knowledge as well as special
-habits of punctual regularity, obedience, and
-thoughtfulness--without receiving any special training or education
-for such a duty. If the reforms about to be introduced into the
-pauper hospitals in London and elsewhere are not to end in failure
-and disappointment, provision must be made for training the nurses
-to be employed there, either before they enter the hospitals or
-within them.
-
-The report of the Sub-Committee of Superintendence is as follows:--
-
- The Special Committee on Nursing, pursuant to resolution of the
- Workhouse Committee of the 7th of March instant, report,
-
- That the Men's Hospital (exclusive of fever patients) is at
- present exclusively nursed by skilled, _i. e._ specially trained
- nurses and paid assistants, who are themselves undergoing training
- as nurses; the staff consisting of the Superintendent, nine of the
- nurses originally sent from the Nightingale School, five nurses
- who have been trained in the Workhouse, and fifteen probationary
- or assistant nurses.
-
- Of the character of the nursing in this portion of the Workhouse,
- your Committee have heard but one opinion. The Governor and the
- Medical Officers concur in speaking of it in terms of the highest
- praise, and throughout the whole period during which the Committee
- have superintended it, no single circumstance has come to their
- knowledge calculated to make them speak of it otherwise than in
- terms of approval.
-
- The nursing of the women's wards continues to be done by paupers
- under the superintendence of paid officers. The superintendence of
- these officers is of necessity very imperfect, as not only has
- each charge of from 150 to 200 patients, but these patients are
- located in several rooms, each ward containing about twenty
- patients. The only portion of the nursing, properly so called,
- which these officers undertake, is the administration of
- stimulants and in some exceptional cases of medicine. The bulk of
- it, as the giving of medicine, the dressing of wounds, the
- distribution of food, is left to be done by paupers. So much has
- from time to time been said of the untrustworthiness of pauper
- nurses, of the evils resulting to those patients who are placed
- exclusively under them, of the mischievous consequences upon the
- discipline of the Workhouse of a large number of petty offices
- being filled by able-bodied women, that your Committee believe
- they rightly interpret the feeling of the Select Vestry, as they
- undoubtedly do that of the general public, in supposing that the
- actual nursing of the sick in the Liverpool Workhouse can no
- longer be left in the hands of pauper nurses.
-
- Starting from this point, your Committee considered that they had
- principally to inquire what sort of nursing can be most
- advantageously substituted for that of nursing by paupers. Two
- courses only appeared to be open to them--either to increase the
- number of paid officers, giving to each such a number of patients
- as she could reasonably be expected to look after, and treating
- each as an independent officer; or to extend over the whole
- hospital the system now in existence in the men's wards. Your
- Committee were much aided in forming a judgment upon this point,
- by what has taken place during the last few months in the fever
- hospital.
-
- Here, originally, the paid attendants were in precisely the same
- position, with precisely similar duties as the paid officers in
- the women's hospital; but the number of patients rapidly
- diminishing, and no corresponding reduction taking place in the
- number of officers, the staff was so large that Dr. Gee felt able
- to call upon the officers to act as nurses. The result was what
- might have been anticipated, that although an improvement upon the
- old system of nursing by paupers was perceptible, the state of the
- nursing was still far short of the standard reached in the men's
- wards.
-
- The officers were told to nurse, and they did their best, but
- never having themselves been taught, their attempts in a great
- measure failed; they were paid and retained as nurses, without
- being efficient nurses.
-
- Your Committee therefore recommend that as soon as the requisite
- number of trained nurses can be procured, the nursing in the
- women's hospital, and afterwards in the fever hospital, be placed
- in the hands of trained and skilled nurses, acting under the
- direction and control of Miss Jones, the present Superintendent.
- The expenses (beyond the item of wages) attendant upon the
- necessary increase in the number of nurses will not be great, as
- all that will be necessary will be to convert two of the rooms now
- used for sick boys into sleeping apartments for the nurses. In
- making this recommendation, the Committee are glad to know that
- they are fortified by the unanimous opinion of the Governor and
- the Medical Officers of the Workhouse.
-
- Your Committee are bound to add that they can produce no
- statistics shewing that the nursing in the men's hospital has been
- of any economical advantage to the Parish; but as it needs no
- argument to prove that the cheapest course that can be taken with
- a sick pauper is to cure him as quickly as possible; as it is
- evident that the care and attention of a skilled nurse must tend
- to a more speedy recovery; as the order and discipline of a
- well-regulated ward is more distasteful to many of the more
- worthless inmates, than the laxer management of a room in the
- hands of a pauper nurse; and as the abolition of a large number of
- petty offices for able-bodied paupers must lead to many of them
- leaving the Workhouse, there are strong grounds for hoping that
- the economical results of the change cannot but be beneficial.
-
- With regard to the future, your Committee recommend that the
- Department of Nursing should be placed under the direction of a
- small committee of your body, and that all changes in the staff
- should be made only by them. From information they have received,
- your Committee have reason to believe that if, after the Workhouse
- is supplied with Nurses, the two classes of nurses, _i.e._ trained
- nurses and probationers, be maintained, the cost of the Department
- may be considerably lessened by training nurses for other
- hospitals; the cost of the probationers being either paid for by a
- Government grant, or by the bodies for whom the nurses may be
- trained.
-
- THOMAS H. SATCHELL,
- RICHARD BRIGHT,
- THOMAS OWEN.
-
- _March 15, 1867._
-
-This report was unanimously adopted by the Workhouse Committee and
-by the Vestry; and already the new system has been extended to the
-Female Wards. It is in contemplation to extend it also to the Fever
-Hospital, as soon as a sufficient number of suitable nurses shall
-have been trained.
-
-It will be observed that the report contemplates the training of
-probationers for other Workhouse Infirmaries. And it is, indeed, to
-be hoped that in this and other ways the Liverpool Workhouse
-Hospital may serve as a normal school, from which the system there
-adopted may spread. The _special_ expenses of such a school would
-naturally be borne by the parishes which profited by its services in
-educating nurses for them, or by the Government. But this point is
-one which, as yet, has hardly demanded practical consideration.
-
-The experiment whose results have been recorded, could hardly have
-been tried at all--certainly could not have achieved such rapid
-success--had it not been for the powerful and liberal assistance of
-Miss Nightingale, and the Trustees of the Nightingale Fund. Feeling
-how very important was the extension of the system of superior
-professional nursing, now gradually gaining ground in general
-hospitals, to workhouses, they sent, to assist in the initial
-experiment made in this direction, a lady superintendent and twelve
-superior nurses--a very expensive and quite invaluable contribution.
-To the Liverpool Vestry and its officers belongs the credit of
-having overcome all the difficulties, and persevered in spite of all
-the discouraging incidents, which necessarily attended an attempt to
-introduce a new system of management into such an institution as a
-Workhouse Hospital, combining as it does two subjects so different
-in their aspects and conditions of treatment, so difficult to deal
-with together, as pauperism and sickness. Of the Lady Superintendent
-I shall say little. When a lady leaves a happy home, and goes
-through a long and laborious course of training to fit herself for
-such a situation, purely because, feeling that she possessed the
-capacity for nursing, and the requisite health, energy, strength,
-and spirits, she desired to devote such powers to the service of
-those who stood most in need of them, human praise or criticism of
-her choice is out of place. One of the incidental results of her
-exertions has to her, no doubt, been even a higher reward than that
-improvement in the condition of the sick, in their progress towards
-recovery, and their material comfort, which has been the direct
-object of her labours. The improvement in the tone and behaviour of
-the patients has been wonderful. Many of the inmates of a pauper
-hospital are persons of the worst character, and its wards, under
-the control of pauper nurses, often present scenes so disgusting
-that the respectable poor shrink from them with utter abhorrence,
-and after once becoming acquainted with them, will often rather die
-than return thither. When the trained nurses were first introduced,
-the most offensive language was frequently heard in the wards; and
-the Lady Superintendent has repeatedly been obliged to call upon the
-Governor two or three times during one Sunday to use his authority
-to put a stop to actual fighting. Now, though his support is always
-promptly rendered, she is rarely compelled to apply for it; the
-feeling of the wards promptly suppresses all offensive language or
-unseemly behaviour in the presence of the nurses. The following
-letter from Sir H. Verney, Chairman of the Nightingale Committee,
-serves to illustrate the influence of the nurses upon the conduct of
-the patients; he came down to Liverpool to inspect the Hospital, and
-ascertain the progress of the work:--
-
- Liverpool, _October 3, 1866_.
-
- My dear Sir,
-
- By the kindness of Mr. Carr I have paid a visit to the Workhouse,
- and have been greatly interested by remarking the change among the
- male pauper sick, effected since I was here about two years since.
- I conclude that this is owing to the nursing by a class of females
- so entirely different to those who nursed the male paupers at that
- time, and who still nurse the female sick. I have always seen that
- the influence of respectable and well-educated females over the
- most debased men is very striking. Men of that character,
- accustomed to intercourse with only degraded women, feel the
- restraining and humanizing power of virtuous and well-mannered
- females. They have never been admitted into intercourse with such
- before, and they are most beneficially affected by it. I have been
- told that the police officers, who sometimes come to the Workhouse
- on business, and who see the sick paupers, are much astonished.
- They see the men whom they have known as the very worst
- characters, conducting themselves with propriety and decency, and
- giving no cause of complaint.
-
- I am sure that the Workhouse Committee must rejoice and feel
- thankful that there is such a change in the condition of the poor
- creatures brought under their rule.
-
- Miss Jones, and her nurses and probationers, must have had much
- difficulty at first--indeed their work is still very trying; but
- the improved demeanour of the men must be highly gratifying and
- encouraging to them. I walked through the female sick wards; they
- were clean and sweet, but I could not help contrasting the pauper
- nurses who attended them, with the intelligent-looking respectable
- attendants of the men.
-
- I thank you for the note of introduction which procured admission
- for me, and
-
- I am,
- Yours very faithfully,
- HARRY VERNEY.
-
-Such, and so entirely satisfactory to the Guardians, were the
-results of the experiment of nursing by trained nurses, as tried for
-two years in the Male Wards of the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. It
-is in order to render those results, the experience acquired in this
-initiatory attempt, available for the assistance and encouragement
-of others, that they have been thus briefly recorded. Much more
-might have been said; but what is here set down is sufficient to
-explain all that practical men would wish to know, and it would be
-presumption to waste the time of such men with comments and
-inferences which they are perfectly able to make for themselves.
-
-One suggestion, in conclusion, I may be permitted to offer. In all
-unions or parishes where additional accommodation may be required,
-whether for patients or for healthy paupers, it is eminently
-desirable that in providing it regard should be had to the entire
-separation, at once or at a future time, of the sick and infirm from
-the able-bodied, as will be the case, at least partially, under the
-new rgime introduced in the Metropolis by Mr. Gathorne Hardy's
-Bill. Miss Nightingale has from the first held and expressed a
-strong opinion in favour of the separation of the hospital and
-workhouse administrations. The Governor of the Liverpool Workhouse,
-Mr. Carr, expressed himself decidedly in the same sense; and the
-Chairman of the Workhouse Committee and of the Sub-Committee
-appointed to superintend the Hospital, has been induced by practical
-experience warmly to advocate the absolute separation of the
-Workhouse and the Infirmary. So large a proportion of the
-able-bodied inmates of the workhouse are drunken, lazy, and vicious,
-that, if the poor-law relief is not to become a temptation and an
-injury to the honest and struggling poor, the discipline must be
-almost of a penal character. The paramount object must be to make
-the workhouse, if not absolutely unpleasant, less agreeable than the
-condition of laborious and striving poverty. On the other hand, in a
-hospital the paramount and almost the only object is to promote
-recovery and to mitigate suffering; all other considerations yield
-to this, and consequently the treatment must necessarily be liberal
-in spirit and indulgent in fact. The modes of treatment necessary
-for the good management of the hospital patient and of the
-able-bodied pauper, respectively, are distinct--almost opposite: the
-infirmary and the workhouse must be controlled on divergent, and
-even contrary principles; and by bringing the two together under one
-roof and one administration, they injure each other. The indulgence
-of the infirmary creeps into the workhouse, or the sternness of
-workhouse rules cripples the benevolent energy which should rule the
-infirmary. And the treatment of the able-bodied pauper becomes too
-lax, or he is tempted to scheme, and does scheme, to get himself
-transferred to the more comfortable quarters close at hand; a desire
-so prevalent as to give rise to malingering--the wilful production
-of disease: while, partly no doubt in order to counteract this
-tendency, there is in such mixed establishments an unconscious
-disposition to treat the hospital patient with the same stern
-economy that is justly made the rule in dealing with able-bodied
-pauperism, but which, in the infirmary, is not only cruel, but in
-the long run is not truly economical. Another most serious evil is
-entailed upon the hospital by connexion with the workhouse. The
-habits and traditions prevalent among the habitual
-paupers--able-bodied paupers--in the workhouse (at least in the
-workhouse of a large town), are too often deeply infected with
-cunning, deception, and dishonesty of all sorts, against which
-strict precaution and stern repression are requisite; and it is most
-important that no communication should be allowed, whereby these
-habits of vice and stratagem might be introduced into the hospital,
-where indulgence is the rule, and where many things strictly denied
-to the inmates of the workhouse, as stimulants for instance, are
-necessarily permitted. The introduction of workhouse tricks into a
-hospital, where they cannot be met by workhouse control, must bring
-in an element of confusion, disorder, and waste, and therefore the
-intercommunication which might introduce those tricks should be as
-effectually prevented as possible, which it cannot be while the two
-institutions are, as at present, combined. The two systems--to use
-an English word in its French sense--demoralize each other; and even
-in the English sense, their union demoralizes the individuals
-subject to each.
-
-When this is better understood and more clearly apprehended, as it
-soon will be, through the experience of several Unions in which the
-separation has been already resolved on--it is probable that it will
-be enforced by law. This may be expected to take place in no very
-long time; and then it will be found that any expenditure incurred
-in providing increased accommodation on a plan which does not
-recognise the necessity of separation has been, in part at least,
-thrown away; and the work will have to be done, and the money to be
-spent, over again.
-
-
-
-
- Footnotes
-
-
-[1]Liverpool is a seaport, and a receptacle where the poverty and
- vice of Great Britain and Ireland seem to accumulate; and it is
- probably on this account that the able-bodied female paupers are
- peculiarly vicious and worthless.
-
-[2]Among the replies of the London medical officers, one which
- seemed especially to impress the Sub-Committee was given by the
- senior honorary medical officer of St. Thomas's. Mr. Hagger
- asked him, "If you had to cure the sick by contract at so much a
- head, and had to choose between unpaid pauper nurses allotted to
- you gratis, or paying yourself for skilled nurses, which would
- you choose?" "To pay for skilled nurses, certainly," was the
- unhesitating answer.
-
-[3]In the opinion of the medical men of the Liverpool Workhouse
- Hospital, 647 of its present number of patients would be
- admissible to an ordinary hospital, and
-
- Men--Medical 40
- " Surgical 80
- Women--Medical 40
- " Surgical 60
- 220 would not be admissible.
-
-[4]In a training school for superior nurses, it will _never_ be
- desirable to employ pauper under-nurses, as they interfere with
- the efficiency of the probationers, who are being trained as
- superior nurses. The latter are apt to delegate to the paupers
- much of the hard but most instructive part of their work. In
- ordinary workhouse hospitals, when there are no probationers, a
- certain number of pauper assistants may perhaps be useful in
- aiding thoroughly trained nurses.
-
-
- LONDON: R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.
-
-
-
-
- Transcriber's Notes
-
-
---Retained publication information from the printed exemplar (this
- eBook is in the public domain in the country of publication.)
-
---Only in the text versions, delimited italicized text with
- _underscores_.
-
---Silently corrected several typos.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's Workhouse Nursing, by Florence Nightingale
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-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Workhouse Nursing, by Florence Nightingale
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Workhouse Nursing
- The story of a successful experiment
-
-Author: Florence Nightingale
-
-Release Date: November 11, 2015 [EBook #50432]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKHOUSE NURSING ***
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-Produced by MWS, Stephen Hutcheson, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
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-
-<div id="cover" class="img">
-<img id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Workhouse Nursing: The Story of a Successful Experiment" width="500" height="798" />
-</div>
-<div class="box">
-<h1>WORKHOUSE NURSING:</h1>
-<p class="tbcenter"><b class="i">THE STORY OF A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT.</b></p>
-<p class="tbcenter"><i><b>London:</b></i>
-<br />MACMILLAN AND CO.
-<br />1867.</p>
-</div>
-<p class="tb">The accompanying account of the Improvements
-introduced by the Select Vestry of Liverpool into the
-Workhouse Hospital Wards under their control, may
-perhaps be interesting to you, and possibly might prove
-suggestive and serviceable, if similar improvements
-should be required in your district.</p>
-<p class="tb">As the time and strength of the Lady Superintendent
-of the Nurses employed in the Workhouse
-Hospital are very fully occupied, enquiries or requests
-for further information should not be addressed to her,
-but to the Chairman of the Workhouse Committee of
-the Select Vestry (and of the Hospital Sub-Committee),</p>
-<p class="center">T. H. SATCHELL, <span class="sc">Esq.</span>
-<br /><i>48, Lord Street</i>,
-<br /><span class="sc">Liverpool</span>;</p>
-<p class="center"><i>Or</i>,</p>
-<p class="center">H. J. HAGGER, <span class="sc">Esq.</span>
-<br /><i>Parish Offices</i>,
-<br /><span class="sc">Liverpool</span>.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_1">1</div>
-<h1 title="">WORKHOUSE NURSING:
-<br /><span class="smallest"><i>THE STORY OF A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT.</i></span></h1>
-<p>The following pages contain a brief account of the
-experiment successfully tried by the Select Vestry of
-Liverpool (the guardians of the poor)&mdash;the introduction
-of trained Nurses into the male wards of the
-Workhouse Infirmary. That experiment having resulted
-so successfully as to induce the Vestry to
-extend the system to the remainder of the infirmary,
-it may be interesting to those who are concerned in
-the management of workhouses elsewhere to learn
-something of its history and progress. It is the
-writer&rsquo;s object to explain&mdash;</p>
-<p>1. The grounds on which the Vestry were led to
-undertake the experiment, as stated in the preliminary
-report of Mr. Carr, the governor, and that of the
-sub-committee of the Vestry appointed to consider
-the proposed scheme; and the replies received to inquiries
-addressed by them to institutions and persons
-connected with the training and employment of skilled
-nurses in London and Liverpool, with letters on the
-subject from Miss Nightingale and Sir John M<sup>c</sup>Neill.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_2">2</div>
-<p>2. The results of the experiment, so far as hitherto
-ascertained.</p>
-<p>The Liverpool Vestry had previously made considerable
-efforts to improve the workhouse infirmaries.
-The medical men had been encouraged to make requisition
-for every material appliance that could facilitate
-the cure of the sick; and paid female officers were
-appointed at the rate of one to each 150 or 200 beds,
-to superintend the giving of medicines and stimulants,
-and so forth: but of course so small a number, even
-had they been trained nurses, could do no real
-nursing, and could exercise little supervision over the
-twenty drunken or unreliable<a class="fn" id="fr_1" href="#fn_1">[1]</a> pauper nurses who
-were under the nominal direction of each paid officer.
-An appeal was made to the Vestry to consummate
-the good work they had thus partially commenced,
-and it was urged that Liverpool should assume the
-lead in the task of workhouse reform. The following
-considerations were submitted to the Select Vestry:&mdash;</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>&ldquo;That Liverpool could commence this movement
-with great effect, and with the certainty that her
-example would be widely followed.</p>
-<p>&ldquo;That she had in times past taken a leading part in
-such reform. The introduction of the New Poor Law
-produced little change in Liverpool; so many of
-its wisest provisions were already in operation there,
-some of them for twenty or thirty years.</p>
-<p>&ldquo;That she had already established a system of attention
-<span class="pb" id="Page_3">3</span>
-to the sick poor in their own houses, which, if
-only by restoring heads of families to health and
-work, saved the parish many times the sum that it
-cost to private benevolence.</p>
-<p>&ldquo;That, lastly and especially, the proposed reform
-ought to commence in Liverpool, because in her workhouse
-the guardians had already, by their liberality, provided
-the sick with everything in the shape of diet and
-medical comforts that could conduce to recovery; and
-what was now wanting to give effect to their wise
-benevolence was, that their system should be administered
-and their intentions carried out by efficient and
-reliable nurses, in the stead of unreliable paupers.&rdquo;</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>The appeal further urged that&mdash;</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>&ldquo;Successful efforts have been made in many directions
-to improve the nursing of the sick, and the
-workhouses must soon be the object of similar endeavours.
-Those poor sufferers whose disease is
-protracted and hopeless are refused admission into
-ordinary hospitals, and must come to the workhouse;
-and the mere duration of the illness is in such cases
-sufficient to reduce to poverty the most industrious,
-careful, and temperate&mdash;men who, while they could
-work, paid regularly their contribution to the poor-rate.
-Surely, these are entitled to at least as great
-care as that which sickness at once assures to the
-imprisoned felon, however criminal, for whom well-paid
-nurses are provided by the State.</p>
-<p>&ldquo;As to the other class of inmates of the workhouse
-infirmary&mdash;those whose ailments are curable&mdash;mere
-economy requires that the most efficient means should
-<span class="pb" id="Page_4">4</span>
-be taken to cure them as speedily as possible, so as to
-preserve them and their families from becoming
-paupers.</p>
-<p>&ldquo;Thus justice and expediency alike counsel the
-introduction into the workhouse of the best known
-system of nursing. Probably nothing which the skill
-and kindness of medical men can do, no food or
-physical appliances which the guardians can supply,
-no oversight or care which they, acting through
-pauper nurses, can bring to bear, are wanting in
-the Liverpool workhouse; but it is to be feared that
-much of this care, liberality, and thought fails of its
-object for want of a sufficient number of reliable and
-duly qualified nurses to carry out the instructions
-given, to administer food and medicine to the patients,
-to dress their wounds, and so forth.&rdquo;</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>This appeal was supported by two letters of Miss
-Nightingale and Sir John M<sup>c</sup>Neill, G.C.B., President
-of the Board of Supervision (the Scotch Poor Law
-Board).</p>
-<hr />
-<p class="center"><i>Letter from</i> <span class="sc">Miss Nightingale</span>.</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="jr1"><span class="sc">115, Park Street, W.</span>
-<br /><i>February 5, 1864.</i></p>
-<p><span class="sc">My dear Sir</span>,</p>
-<p>I will not delay another day expressing how much
-I admire, and how deeply I sympathize with the Workhouse
-plan.</p>
-<p>First let me say that Workhouse sick and Workhouse
-Infirmaries require quite as much care as (I had almost said
-more than) Hospital sick. There is an even greater work
-to be accomplished in Workhouse Infirmaries than in
-Hospitals.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_5">5</div>
-<p>In days long ago, when I visited in one of the largest
-London Workhouse Infirmaries, I became fully convinced
-of this.</p>
-<p>How gladly would I have become the Matron of a
-Workhouse.</p>
-<p>But of a Visitor&rsquo;s visit, the only result is to break the
-Visitor&rsquo;s heart. She sees how much could be done and
-cannot do it.</p>
-<p>Liverpool is of all places the one to try this great Reform
-in. Its example is sure to be followed. It has an admirable
-body of Guardians; it is a thorough practical people; it
-has, or soon will have again, money.</p>
-<p>Lord Russell once said (what is quite true), that the
-Poor Law was never meant to supersede private charity.</p>
-<p>But whatever may be the difficulties about Pauperism,
-in two things most people agree&mdash;viz. that Workhouse sick
-ought to have the best practical nursing, as well as Hospital
-sick&mdash;and that a good wise Matron may save many of these
-from life-long pauperism, by first nursing them well, and
-then rousing them to exertion, and helping them to employment.</p>
-<p>In such a scheme as is wisely proposed, there would be
-four elements.</p>
-<p>1. The Guardians, one of whose functions is to check
-pauperism. They could not be expected to incur greater
-cost than at present, <i>unless</i> it is proved that it cures or
-saves life.</p>
-<p>2. The Visiting or Managing Committee of the Guardians,
-whose authority must not (and need not) in any way be
-interfered with.</p>
-<p>3. The Governor, the Medical Officer, and Chaplain.</p>
-<p>4. (And under the Governor) the proposed Superintendent
-of Nurses and her nursing staff.</p>
-<p>There is no reason why all these parts of the machine
-should not work together.</p>
-<p>The funds are provided to pay the extra nursing for a
-time.</p>
-<p>The difficulty is to find the Lady to govern it.</p>
-<p>When appointed, she must be authorized&mdash;indeed
-<span class="pb" id="Page_6">6</span>
-appointed&mdash;by the Guardians. She must be their Officer;
-and must be invested by the Governor with authority to
-superintend her Nurses in conformity with regulations to
-be agreed upon.</p>
-<p>So far, I see no more difficulty than there was in settling
-our relations as Nurses to the government officials in the
-Crimean War.</p>
-<p>The cases are somewhat similar.</p>
-<p>As to the funds, it is just possible that eventually the
-Guardians might take all the cost on themselves, as soon
-as they saw the great advantages and economy of good
-nursing.</p>
-<p>If Liverpool succeeds, the system is quite sure to extend
-itself.</p>
-<p>The Fever Hospital is one of the Workhouse Infirmaries.
-That is the place to shew what skilful nursing can do.
-The patients are not all paupers. How many families might
-be rescued from pauperism by saving the lives of their
-heads, and by helping the hard-working to more speedy
-convalescence!</p>
-<p class="jr1">Hopefully yours,
-<br />(Signed)<span class="hst"> FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.</span></p>
-</blockquote>
-<hr />
-<p class="center"><i>Extract from a letter from the</i> <span class="sc">Right Honourable Sir John M<sup>c</sup>Neill</span>, G.C.B., <i>dated Granton House, Edinburgh, 28th Feb., 1864</i>.</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>There can be no doubt, I think, that it would be a
-mistake to have pauper nurses mixed up with paid nurses,
-and I think I expressed that opinion when we conversed
-about those things. Paupers might, however, be employed
-to scrub and to do other menial work, under the orders of
-the paid nurses. If the paid nurses are to do much good
-they must have a recognised authority in their wards.
-Without authority there cannot be due responsibility, and
-things must get into confusion. A nurse carrying out the
-<span class="pb" id="Page_7">7</span>
-instructions of the medical officer must have authority to
-do so, and resistance to that authority must be treated as
-a breach of discipline.</p>
-<p>To put this upon a right footing from the first, would
-be indispensable to success. The more a nurse does by
-influence, and kindly influence, the better; but dealing with
-the promiscuous inmates of a workhouse, the knowledge
-that there is authority in reserve to be exercised if necessary,
-prevents the necessity of resorting to it, and makes the
-patients duly appreciate the kindness which keeps it in
-reserve.</p>
-<p>With regard to all such matters, a great deal will depend
-upon the good-will, the good sense, and good feeling of the
-Governor and Matron, but especially of the Governor. He
-can do much to promote or to mar the success of the experiment,
-and so can the medical men; but if they be men
-of sense and right feeling, they cannot fail to perceive how
-vast an addition to their own comfort the permanent establishment
-of such a system as you propose to introduce
-experimentally, must produce.</p>
-<p>The position of a medical man dependent for the execution
-of his instructions upon nurses who are neither intelligent
-nor trustworthy, is very painful, and tends to deteriorate
-his own character, both as a man and as a practitioner, by
-rendering him callous to preventible suffering which he is
-denied the proper means of relieving, and by compelling
-him to forego the use of remedies which require intelligence
-and conscientious care in administering them. The house
-Governor, if he be a conscientious man, must be kept in
-continual anxiety about the conduct of ignorant, and often
-worthless pauper nurses in the hospital, and is driven at
-length to be satisfied with a low moral and intellectual
-standard in the nurses, and a corresponding standard of
-care and comfort in the hospital.</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>The Select Vestry took the subject into their serious
-consideration, and instituted most careful inquiries in
-various quarters. Among other steps, they called for
-<span class="pb" id="Page_8">8</span>
-a report on the probable operation of the proposed
-system from Mr. Carr, the Governor of the Workhouse.
-That report ran as follows:&mdash;</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="tbcenter"><i>Extract from the Journal of the Governor of the Workhouse.</i></p>
-<p class="jr1"><span class="sc">Liverpool, Thursday</span>, <i>April 14, 1864</i>.</p>
-<p>In compliance with the instructions of the Workhouse
-Committee, I have carefully considered the proposal made to
-the Committee by a Liverpool gentleman, on the subject of
-nursing the sick in the Workhouse Hospital, and beg in
-reference thereto to report&mdash;</p>
-<p>That, practically, the proposal amounts to this&mdash;that there
-shall not be any pauper nurses in the hospital, but that there
-shall be appointed in lieu a staff of duly qualified paid nurses
-and servants, with a head superintendent, under whom the
-whole of the nursing of the sick shall be conducted on the
-best known principles.</p>
-<p>This proposal rests its claim to favourable consideration on
-the presumption that the present system of nursing the sick
-in the Workhouse Hospital is defective. The Committee are
-aware what that system is. It may thus be briefly stated.
-Certain wards of the workhouse are set apart as hospital
-wards. They do not form an hospital worked as a whole, but
-are divided into five portions, each forming a distinct set of
-wards, in close proximity to the wards of the healthy paupers,
-and in five different parts of the workhouse. These five sets
-of wards I shall call the Workhouse Hospital. The hospital
-is divided into eleven sections. At the head of each section
-there is an intelligent paid superintendent nurse, and under
-each such superintendent nurse there is placed a staff of
-pauper nurses, with the aid of whom she is required to work
-her division, according to certain rules and regulations made
-and provided for that purpose. A copy of these rules is
-appended hereto; from which it will be seen that the burden
-of the responsibility of carrying out the orders of the medical
-officers, devolves upon the head nurses or superintendents of
-<span class="pb" id="Page_9">9</span>
-divisions. The pauper nurses clean up the wards, carry the
-food, and give general assistance to the superintendent&mdash;the
-duties of nursing in detail, that is to say, the bedside nursing,
-falling chiefly upon them. They are not permitted, however,
-to serve any patient with stimulants, beer, porter, or medicines
-requiring exactness or care; all such duties are discharged
-by the superintendent nurse. The proposal now made
-to the Committee, means that the paid staff shall be increased,
-so that the sick shall be cared for by responsible officers only,
-and not left, even partially, to the care of pauper nurses.</p>
-<p>There is no doubt that pauper nurses are unreliable, inefficient,
-and many of them very worthless; and it is only by
-careful watching, and the utmost stringency of regulations,
-that they can be made serviceable in the hospital. No stringency
-of regulations, however, could guard against the most
-flagrant abuses, if these women were employed to discharge
-duties of trust, such as serving out the stimulants, &amp;c. so that
-their services in attending upon the sick are limited and common-place.
-There is therefore, in my mind, no doubt, and I
-cannot see how any doubt can exist, that to remove these
-women, and appoint in their places women of character,
-trained as nurses, will tend to improve the position of the
-sick, and more rapidly restore many of them to health.</p>
-<p>To displace these pauper women, however, involves a complete
-change in all the hospital arrangements, and suggests
-the difficulty of finding and keeping up a supply of suitable
-nurses to undertake the work at, as it would no doubt often
-happen, short notice. The Committee are aware, too, that
-owing to the fact that the paupers have hitherto been required
-to attend upon the sick, the accommodation for paid officers
-is very limited, and that the adoption of the proposal would
-render it necessary at once to provide additional rooms for
-the additional staff. The Committee are also aware that the
-Workhouse Hospital differs from other hospitals in this&mdash;that
-it forms a part only of a mixed establishment, and that there
-are great difficulties to be overcome in completely cutting off
-every connexion or species of intercourse between the hospital
-departments and the healthy inmates, without which the
-scheme under consideration could hardly succeed. If any
-<span class="pb" id="Page_10">10</span>
-good is to result from the adoption of this proposal, the sick
-should be placed absolutely and entirely in the hands of a
-paid staff, without the assistance, in any form, of any one of
-the pauper inmates. Cut off the hospital department from
-the healthy wards; and do not, under any pretext, suffer
-communication between the sick and the healthy, and you
-strike at the root of every species of workhouse abuse; but if,
-under any pretext, you suffer a large number of healthy
-paupers to pass daily into the sick departments, as they now
-do, the adoption of the proposal will effect little good.</p>
-<p>But the question has to be still further investigated on the
-ground of expense; and it has to be decided the number,
-pay, allowances, and accommodation of the necessary staff to
-work it out. Now, although I entertain very strong opinions
-as to the undesirability of employing paupers to discharge
-responsible duties of any kind, because to do so destroys the
-value of the workhouse test, and tends to reconcile them to
-pauperism; and although I view the particular work of nurse-tending
-as the very worst kind of work for paupers, inasmuch
-as, while so employed, they are better fed, have more
-freedom of action than they otherwise would, and can make
-their places emolumental&mdash;thereby holding out a positive
-inducement to pauperism; and although I have no doubt that
-the displacement of these women would be followed by the
-immediate application for discharges by a large per-centage
-of them; and although, at this moment, many other weighty
-considerations press upon me in favour of the immediate
-adoption of the proposal under consideration, I feel unwilling,
-in view of the difficulties to be overcome, some of which I
-have indicated, to incur the weighty responsibility of recommending
-such a course on my own unaided judgment. I
-have abstained, therefore, from taking up the question of
-expense, &amp;c. but take the liberty respectfully to suggest, that
-a sub-committee be appointed to report upon the whole question
-in all its details. It shall be my anxious desire and
-pleasure to assist the labours of such sub-committee by every
-means in my power.</p>
-</blockquote>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_11">11</div>
-<p>According to the recommendation of Mr. Carr, a
-Sub-Committee was appointed, consisting of men of
-great experience in parochial business, who went up
-to London, and had interviews with the medical and
-other officers of the two metropolitan hospitals where
-nursing has been brought to the greatest perfection&mdash;St.
-Thomas&rsquo;s and King&rsquo;s College Hospitals. Finding
-that some of these gentlemen wished for more information
-respecting the Workhouse Hospital system
-before they would venture to express decided opinions
-as to the economical results of the proposed reform,
-the Liverpool Visitors drew up a statement on several
-points affecting this question, with written inquiries,
-to which answers were returned, verbally or in writing,
-by the gentlemen consulted. This statement, with the
-replies which it elicited, is here given at length:&mdash;<a class="fn" id="fr_2" href="#fn_2">[2]</a></p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">STATEMENT AND QUESTIONS OF THE LIVERPOOL SUB-COMMITTEE.</span></p>
-<p>The population of the Parish of Liverpool is about 270,000.</p>
-<p>The expenditure from the poor&rsquo;s-rate in and about the
-relief of the poor is about 100,000<i>l</i>. per annum.</p>
-<p>Of this about 40,000<i>l</i>. is distributed in out-door relief as
-money and bread. (Of course sickness is one great cause of
-persons seeking relief, though to what extent this cause
-operates, even directly, I cannot on so short a notice ascertain
-or even estimate.)</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_12">12</div>
-<p>The expenses (direct) of treating the out-door sick are:&mdash;</p>
-<table class="center">
-<tr><td class="l">Salaries of Medical Officers, &amp;c. </td><td class="r">&pound;1,800</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l">Medicines, &amp;c. </td><td class="r"><span class="u">1,378</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l"> </td><td class="r">&pound;3,178</td></tr>
-</table>
-<p>The cost of maintaining the Workhouse Hospital may be
-estimated as follows:&mdash;</p>
-<table class="center">
-<tr><td class="l">Maintenance of Patients </td><td class="r">&pound;9,700</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l">Salaries of Medical Officers </td><td class="r">485</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l">Medicines, &amp;c. </td><td class="r"><span class="u">1,050</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l"> </td><td class="r"><span class="u">&pound;11,235</span></td></tr>
-</table>
-<p>The Hospital contains accommodation for over 1,000
-patients, and has often 1,000 in it. The cases at present
-are:&mdash;</p>
-<table class="center">
-<tr><td class="l">Medical </td><td class="r">485</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l">Surgical </td><td class="r">345</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l">Fever </td><td class="r">120</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l">Smallpox </td><td class="r">20</td></tr>
-</table>
-<p>The weekly discharges are from twenty to thirty per cent.
-of the whole number in the hospital.<a class="fn" id="fr_3" href="#fn_3">[3]</a></p>
-<p>The present workhouse staff consists of fourteen paid
-officers (who are superintendents, but not trained nurses), and
-about 150 paupers acting as nurses, but not paid. It has
-been proposed to add a trained hospital matron and trained
-nurses, such as those trained in the Nightingale School, and
-assistant nurses, so as to give one trained day-nurse and one
-<span class="pb" id="Page_13">13</span>
-paid assistant to about every three pauper nurses, and a
-trained night-nurse on every flat; it is further proposed to
-pay the paupers who act as nurses, wages. The cost of this
-would be about 2,000<i>l</i>. per annum.</p>
-<p>Does your experience of hospitals lead you to believe that
-the cost of this improved system would be &ldquo;in part,&rdquo; &ldquo;wholly,&rdquo;
-or &ldquo;more than&rdquo; repaid to the ratepayers by curing people
-more quickly, by curing those who otherwise might have
-become chronic cases, and by enabling those to resume their
-work who must otherwise have remained or died, and by thus
-diminishing the duration or amount of that part of pauperism
-which is the result of sickness?</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">REPLIES OF PHYSICIANS, &amp;c. OF ST. THOMAS&rsquo;S HOSPITAL.</span></p>
-<p class="tb">1. <i>Reply of</i> <span class="sc">R. H. Goolden</span>, Esq., M.D.</p>
-<p class="tb">&ldquo;I have no doubt but that the plan suggested, if properly
-carried out, would be in the end a saving to the ratepayers,
-the restoration to health relieving the parish of constant
-burdens.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="tb">2. <i>Reply of</i> <span class="sc">John Simon</span>, Esq.</p>
-<p class="tb">&ldquo;I do not feel myself competent to measure at all exactly
-what might be the pecuniary result of the proposed system.
-But in my opinion the substitution of skilled for unskilled
-attendance would be of great advantage to the sick, and would
-of course tend to diminish that part of the pauperism which
-results from sickness.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="tb">3. <i>Reply of</i> <span class="sc">Sydney Jones</span>, Esq., M.B.</p>
-<p class="tb">&ldquo;In my opinion the improved system of nursing recommended
-would amply repay the expense incurred.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="tb">4. <i>Reply of</i> <span class="sc">J. S. Bristowe</span>, Esq., M.D.</p>
-<p class="tb">&ldquo;I believe that the introduction of paid nurses into the
-Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary would be of inestimable
-benefit to the sick poor received into the institution, and
-would thus amply justify the expense which it is proposed
-<span class="pb" id="Page_14">14</span>
-to incur. I also think it very probable that the cost of
-nursing would be repaid in many other ways to the ratepayers.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="tb">5. <i>Reply of</i> <span class="sc">Edward Clapton</span>, Esq., M.D.</p>
-<p class="tb">&ldquo;I believe it would be quite repaid.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">REPLIES FROM THE PHYSICIANS, &amp;c. OF KING&rsquo;S COLLEGE HOSPITAL.</span></p>
-<p class="tb">1. <i>Reply of</i> <span class="sc">Henry Smith</span>, Esq. <i>Assistant Surgeon</i>.</p>
-<p class="tb">&ldquo;I believe, from a long experience of hospitals and other
-institutions, that the cost of an improved system of nursing
-as proposed for the Liverpool Workhouse Hospital would
-certainly be &lsquo;in part&rsquo; repaid by restoring the patients to
-health more quickly.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="tb">2. <i>Copy of a Letter from</i> <span class="sc">Miss Jones</span>, <i>Lady Superintendent
-of St. John&rsquo;s House Nursing Schools, and Matron of King&rsquo;s
-College Hospital</i>.</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="jr1"><span class="sc">King&rsquo;s College Hospital</span>, <i>May 4, 1864</i>.</p>
-<p><span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,</p>
-<p>The inclosed paper was sent to me yesterday, with
-the request that I would obtain from some of the medical
-staff of this Hospital answers to the question proposed at the
-end of the paper, in order to enable the Vestry in some degree
-to judge whether that body would be justified, or otherwise, in
-sanctioning the introduction to their Workhouse Hospital of
-an improved system of nursing the sick, at the probable
-annual money cost named in the inclosed paper.</p>
-<p>I have accordingly submitted the paper to as many of
-the medical staff as I could see in the short time.</p>
-<p>I inclose a note from Mr. Henry Smith, one of the
-surgeons, who has had considerable experience as to the loss
-and gain of good and bad nursing.</p>
-<p>Dr. Wm. O. Priestly, the Physician Accoucheur to this
-Hospital, formerly of Middlesex Hospital, had not time during
-his visit to do more than read the paper and give me a verbal
-<span class="pb" id="Page_15">15</span>
-answer. He said, &ldquo;I have no hesitation in saying that the
-saving would be certain and great.&rdquo;</p>
-<p>The Assistant Physician Accoucheur, who has until last
-week had charge of the medical patients here, as House
-Physician (Mr. H. L. Kempthorne), says, &ldquo;The value of trained
-efficient nursing cannot be overrated in the management of
-acute diseases, and especially fevers, and would speak for
-itself in the saving of life, humanly speaking.</p>
-<p>&ldquo;In chronic cases, the eye of the trained nurse would soon
-detect the malingerer, and thus save the parish the expense of
-maintaining one who could well keep himself.</p>
-<p>&ldquo;In the prevention and amelioration of disease this plan
-would soon show its importance in the effects of cleanliness,
-ventilation, and other points carried out systematically and
-intelligently.</p>
-<p>&ldquo;The moral influence of the trained nurses by precept and
-example must in time diffuse itself through the medium of
-the pauper nurses to the paupers in hospital, the workhouse,
-and thence to the parish at large.&rdquo;</p>
-<p>I regret my inability to obtain fuller testimony to-day,
-but professional men are busy, and their visits to the hospital
-only on stated days.</p>
-<p>If I can be of further use in any way, pray command me.</p>
-<p class="center">I am, Sir,
-<br />Very faithfully yours,
-<span class="lr">(Signed)<span class="hst"> M. J.</span></span>
-<span class="lr"><span class="small"><i>Superintendent of St. John&rsquo;s.</i></span></span></p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>After collecting and considering all the information
-within their reach, the Sub-Committee reported as
-follows:&mdash;</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>The Sub-Committee appointed on the 14th ultimo to
-consider and report as to a suggested alteration in the
-Staff of the Workhouse Hospital, report,</p>
-<p>That the superiority, as nurses, of trained, experienced, and
-responsible women to the pauper women upon whom, under
-<span class="pb" id="Page_16">16</span>
-the present system, the actual nursing of the sick inmates
-of the workhouse devolves, is so apparent, that they conceive
-it to be unnecessary to offer any further observations upon
-this part of the subject. The points which have mainly
-occupied your Committee&rsquo;s attention are the following:&mdash;</p>
-<dl class="undent"><dt>1. The cost of introducing a staff of trained nurses into the Workhouse Hospital, or any portion thereof.</dt>
-<dt>2. The practicability of providing sufficient accommodation in the Workhouse for such an increase of officers.</dt>
-<dt>3. The supply of trained nurses.</dt></dl>
-<p>1. Your Committee are of opinion that the substitution
-throughout the Workhouse Hospital of trained nurses, for
-the present pauper nurses, would involve a direct expenditure
-of from 2,000<i>l.</i> to 2,500<i>l.</i> per annum. Should it be
-decided, in the first instance, to introduce the nurses into
-the male hospital only, it is probable that a sum of 800<i>l.</i>
-per annum would be found sufficient for the purpose. Evidence
-has been laid before the Committee to show that in
-those hospitals where the improved system of nursing has
-been introduced, the increased cost thereof has been more
-than compensated for by the saving, from the reduction of the
-time during which the patients are under treatment&mdash;the effect,
-as is alleged, of good and efficient nursing. Whilst your Committee
-admit the force of the argument, that if this be so
-in the case of hospitals, where the sick only are burdens
-upon the funds of the institution, much more must it be so
-in the case of the parish, where, as often happens, the whole
-family are chargeable upon the rates in consequence of the
-sickness of its head; they think it necessary to point out
-that one great difference between the workhouse hospital and
-an ordinary infirmary consists in this, that while in the latter
-(as a rule) none but acute and supposed curable cases are
-admitted, the former is, in many cases, the refuge of those
-who, as incurables, cannot gain admittance to other asylums.
-There can, however, be no doubt that the saving resulting
-from the rapidity and completeness of the cures effected by
-good nursing, will be a considerable set-off against the increased
-cost of the nursing staff; though your Committee
-<span class="pb" id="Page_17">17</span>
-can offer no decided opinion as to the probable extent of the
-saving so effected.</p>
-<p>2. Your Committee believe that accommodation equal at
-least, if not superior, to that afforded to the nurses in the
-London hospitals, can be provided in the Workhouse at a
-moderate outlay. It is estimated that, for the male hospital,
-a sum of from 400<i>l.</i> to 500<i>l.</i> would suffice to provide the
-rooms and to furnish them.</p>
-<p>3. With reference to the supply of suitable nurses, your
-Committee have to report that, as the authorities of the
-Nightingale Training School for nurses have offered to render
-to the Select Vestry all the assistance in their power in
-obtaining trained nurses, no great difficulty on this point need
-be apprehended.</p>
-<p>Were your Committee as sanguine as some of the hospital
-authorities whom they have consulted, as to the happy results
-to be expected from the introduction of trained nurses into
-the Workhouse, they would at once, with the utmost confidence,
-recommend that the whole of the hospital should, at
-the cost of the parish, be supplied with this class of officers;
-but, looking upon it as they do, as an experiment (at least in
-its economical results), they unanimously recommend that
-the system should, in the first instance, be tried in the male
-hospital.</p>
-<p class="jr1">J. W. CROPPER, <i>Chairman</i>.</p>
-<p><i>May 5, 1864.</i></p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>The report of the Sub-Committee met with the
-approval of the Vestry. Some delay in the adoption
-of its recommendations was caused by a severe outbreak
-of fever in the town, which for the time
-absorbed all the resources of the Vestry and its
-officers. But on the 18th of May, 1865, a Lady
-Superintendent who had received a thorough training
-at Kaiserswerth and St. Thomas&rsquo;s, twelve Nightingale
-nurses from St. Thomas&rsquo;s, eighteen probationers,
-<span class="pb" id="Page_18">18</span>
-and fifty-two of the old pauper nurses were placed
-in charge of the patients in the male wards of the
-Workhouse Infirmary. By the judicious management
-of Mr. Carr, the most admirable arrangements were
-made for the accommodation of the nurses. Each
-superior nurse had a little room to herself, and the
-ex-pauper nurses were entirely separated from the
-other inmates of the Workhouse. It was hoped that
-by taking the best of the able-bodied inmates, separating
-them from the other paupers, and paying
-them small wages (say 5<i>l.</i> a year) they might be
-made available as assistant nurses, and that many
-of them might be elevated into independence and
-usefulness. It will be seen from the foregoing report
-of the Governor (p. 10), that he always distrusted
-this part of the plan adopted; and after the system
-had been at work a year, this attempt to utilize
-pauper nurses in a workhouse hospital was found
-to have utterly failed. It was proved that in a
-town like Liverpool, with very few exceptions, those
-able-bodied women only become inmates of the Workhouse
-who are either tainted in character, or are
-exceptionally ill-educated and inefficient. The experiment,
-however, was not wholly useless. It conclusively
-established two facts: that such women
-are utterly unfit to be trusted as nurses; and that
-their employment in that capacity does not effect
-all the saving that might be supposed. It might
-be thought that the choice lay between such employment
-and maintaining the pauper in idleness, while
-paying a nurse in her stead. But it was found&mdash;as
-the Governor had always predicted&mdash;that when sent
-<span class="pb" id="Page_19">19</span>
-back from the hospital to the able-bodied wards,
-nearly the whole of these women left the Workhouse,
-and relieved the parish from the charge of their
-maintenance. Many of these women, when employed
-as nurses, remain in the Workhouse for the sake of
-what they can pick up or extort. And moreover,
-when they left it, the training they had received,
-such as it was, rendered them more intelligent, and
-perhaps not more unreliable nurses than those usually
-employed by the poor. It is not unlikely that in
-country places the unfitness of able-bodied paupers
-to become assistant nurses may be far less than it
-has been found to be in a great seaport town like
-Liverpool. They may probably be less universally
-tainted in character, and after a year or two of
-employment as under-nurses they may be able to
-maintain themselves in that capacity out-of-doors,
-thus not only relieving the parish of their own
-maintenance, but assisting to diminish sickness and
-pauperism among their neighbours. The point is
-one which must be left to local knowledge and experience.
-It might be well, however, not to promise
-them payment till after some length of probationary
-service. It was always after pay-day that the ex-pauper
-nurses were most liable to get drunk and
-misbehave.<a class="fn" id="fr_4" href="#fn_4">[4]</a> With the exception of the failure of
-the nurses taken from the pauper class, the first
-<span class="pb" id="Page_20">20</span>
-year&rsquo;s trial was sufficiently successful to induce a
-continuance of the experiment. It was impossible,
-however, to judge the result by statistics. None
-that were available could be considered as an evidence
-of success or failure, for several reasons. The
-season was very unhealthy, and to relieve the pressure
-on the space and resources of the hospital, steps were
-taken to treat slight cases outside, as will be seen
-from the following extract from the Minutes of the
-Finance Committee, 24th November, 1865:&mdash;</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>&ldquo;The district medical officers, Dr. Gee, Mr. Barnes, and
-the Governor of the workhouse being in attendance, pursuant
-to resolution of the Workhouse Committee at its meeting
-yesterday, the practicability of limiting the admissions to
-the Workhouse Hospital was considered, and the district
-medical officers were requested to co-operate with the relieving
-officers in limiting such admissions to those cases that cannot
-be properly treated outside the Workhouse.&rdquo;</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>The endeavour to limit the admissions to serious
-cases would of course affect the returns, both as
-regards the time taken in curing, and the proportion
-of deaths. Even had there been no exceptional disturbing
-element, there is a defect in the statistics of
-workhouse hospitals which affects all inferences from
-them, in the absence of any careful classified list of
-cases kept by the medical officers, such as might
-fairly enable one to form a judgment from mere
-statistical tables. These, then, are not reliable as
-means of judgment, unless extending over a long
-period. The character of seasons, and nature of cases
-admitted, varies so much from year to year as to
-invalidate any deductions, unless founded on
-<span class="pb" id="Page_21">21</span>
-complete and minutely kept medical records. The following
-extracts, however, from the reports of the
-Governor, and the surgical and medical officers of the
-Workhouse, bear decisive witness to the value of the
-&ldquo;new system,&rdquo; especially as contrasted with the
-&ldquo;old system,&rdquo; which in 1865-66 still prevailed in
-the female wards. All these reports bear emphatic
-testimony to the merits and devotion of the Lady
-Superintendent and her staff. The medical men, it
-is noteworthy, speak strongly of the better discipline
-and far greater obedience to their orders observable
-where the trained nurses are employed&mdash;a point the
-more important because it is that on which, before
-experience has reassured them, medical and other
-authorities have often been most doubtful.</p>
-<hr />
-<p class="center"><i>From the Report of the Governor.</i></p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="jr1"><span class="sc">Thursday</span>, <i>May 10, 1866</i>.</p>
-<p>The main feature in the new system of nursing consists
-in the superseding of pauper nurses, and appointing in their
-places competent trained nurses from the Nightingale School.
-These latter to have the assistance of &ldquo;probationary nurses,&rdquo;
-or in other words, women of intelligence and of good character
-desirous of entering upon the duties of nursing the sick as
-a profession. A third class was also created, designated
-&ldquo;Assistants.&rdquo; These were selected from the old pauper nurses,
-and it was decided that they should be paid, clothed, and
-receive rations equal in quality and quantity to those issued
-to the officers of the workhouse. The nurses, probationers,
-and assistants were placed under the control of a &ldquo;Lady Superintendent,&rdquo;
-who was empowered to employ them in the
-manner to her seeming best for the proper care of the sick.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_22">22</div>
-<p>The Committee will be prepared to hear that the change
-was immediately followed by the most marked improvement
-in every respect. The most casual observer could not avoid
-perceiving it. This applies not only to the state of the
-wards, the care of the sick, but is particularly observable in
-the demeanour of the patients, upon whom the humanizing
-influences of a body of women of character, devotedly discharging
-their duties, has produced evident fruits.</p>
-<p>The question has often been asked whether the &ldquo;new
-system is likely to succeed?&rdquo; The &ldquo;old system&rdquo; meant
-nothing more than this, that old, ignorant, and unreliable
-pauper women, many of whom were of doubtful character,
-were entrusted with the discharge, without pay, of responsible
-duties. These have been displaced, and active, intelligent,
-reliable women, trained and skilled as nurses, with good
-characters and pay, have been appointed to supersede them.
-It would be a great discredit if these latter did not discharge
-their duties incomparably better than the former could do.
-That they do so I am happy to be in a position to testify.</p>
-<p>In the opening paragraph of this report it is stated that
-&ldquo;assistant nurses&rdquo; were appointed and placed upon pay from
-the ranks of the paupers. This I was always opposed to.
-Their employment has resulted in complete failure, as the
-following figures will prove. The total number appointed to
-this date is 141. Of these sixty-seven have been dismissed
-through drunkenness and other misconduct, and sixteen have
-resigned; while it is positively true that there is not one of
-the whole number to whom I could entrust the duties of
-serving out wine or other stimulants, or, in fact, any duty
-requiring the exercise of integrity.</p>
-<p>The experience of the past year renders it certain that the
-Poor Law, as now existing, offers no impediments to the
-successful working out of the most complete scheme for the
-efficient nursing of the sick, in the manner advocated by the
-best friends of hospital nursing.</p>
-<p class="jr1">(Signed)<span class="hst"> GEO. CARR.</span></p>
-</blockquote>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_23">23</div>
-<p class="tbcenter"><i>From the Report of</i> <span class="sc">Robert Gee, Esq.</span> M.D. <i>Physician to the Workhouse Hospital</i>.</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="jr1">5, <span class="sc">Abercromby Square, Liverpool</span>,
-<br /><i>May 10, 1866</i>.</p>
-<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>,</p>
-<p>In the medical wards of a general hospital the
-cases vary so much in nature and degree from year to year,
-as to render it impossible to give a reliable statistical comparison
-of the value of a paid as distinguished from an
-unpaid staff of nurses. I am, therefore, necessarily compelled
-to report in general terms on the nursing of the last ten
-months in the male medical wards; premising that what I
-say in approbation of the new system, and the new staff of
-nurses must not be construed as an unfavourable reflection on
-the <i>whole</i> of the previous staff. The paid superintending
-nurses of departments, and a few of the unpaid pauper nurses,
-deserve great credit for their conduct, though their qualifications
-for the service were decidedly inferior to those of the
-trained &ldquo;Nightingale&rdquo; staff.</p>
-<p>With regard to the latter I can cordially bear testimony
-to their ability, and to their unwearied and uniformly kind
-attention to the patients under their charge. As to their
-nursing in its specific sense, I may state my belief that in
-every case my directions and those of the House Surgeons
-have been rigidly carried out. The medicines, stimulants,
-&amp;c. &amp;c. have been carefully administered, and the other
-numerous but less agreeable duties have been faithfully and
-efficiently attended to. Under their charge I have perceived
-a marked improvement in the demeanour of the patients&mdash;in
-fact, the discipline of the wards is completely changed. There
-has been no disorder or irregularity, but a sense of comfort,
-order, and quiet pervades the whole department. I believe
-further, that every patient leaving the wards has been more
-or less morally elevated during his location there.</p>
-</blockquote>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_24">24</div>
-<p class="tbcenter"><i>From the Report of</i> <span class="sc">J. H. Barnes, Esq.</span>, <i>Surgeon</i>.</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="jr1"><i>March 21, 1866.</i></p>
-<p>Since my connexion with the hospital last August we
-have had somewhat approaching a hundred operations, many
-of them of a serious and dangerous character, requiring not
-only prompt assistance at the time, but most persevering
-attention night and day for a long time after. Almost all
-these operations have been in the male hospital, and I have
-no hesitation in saying that what success has attended them
-has been greatly owing to the most efficient assistance
-rendered by the trained nurses; and from my experience of
-the assistance received from the pauper nurses, in the few
-cases of operation performed in the female hospital, I should
-feel great diffidence in undertaking on that side such operations
-as I have had on the other side: indeed on one or two
-occasions the pauper nurses ran away, and when induced to
-assist were so nervous and frightened as to be of little
-service.</p>
-<p>Without any wish to speak harshly of the unpaid nurses
-employed on the female side of the hospital (who, I believe,
-strive to do their best, more especially since a feeling of
-emulation has been set up by the introduction of the paid
-trained nurses, of whom they are jealous), I am compelled
-to state my conviction that on that side my directions are
-not carried out with that necessary promptitude and skill
-that they are on the other side, and that in all I do there I
-feel as if I were working with blunted instruments. There
-is no want of inclination, but simply a want of ability. That
-<i>integrity of disposition, promptitude of action, tact in manipulation,
-gentleness of demeanour and kindly consideration</i>
-necessary to make a nurse are not found, or <i>to be</i> found
-in the inmates of a workhouse, and no amount of education
-can work out of them what never was in them. Almost
-always obtuse, and too often unprincipled, as a class they are
-thoroughly unreliable, and quite unfitted to take charge of
-the sick and helpless, or the stimulants necessary for them.
-<span class="pb" id="Page_25">25</span>
-On this last point I have been informed by a former resident
-surgeon that he has known the pauper nurses appropriate the
-patient&rsquo;s stimulants, or withhold giving to a dying patient that
-ordered for him, that they might take it themselves after his
-death. It is difficult to bring home and prove these things,
-and I do not wish to say they now occur, but if we wish to
-put such conduct out of the region of possibility it can only
-be done by the employment of persons superior to the temptation
-so to act.</p>
-<p>Persons of one class, as a rule, favour their own class, and
-there is a far better chance of double-dealers being detected
-when under the observation and care of a trained nurse, than
-when under the care of one of themselves. That such is the
-case my own experience testifies.</p>
-<p>As far, therefore, as my experience extends of the system
-of trained nurses, whether regarding the saving of life, the
-restoration to health, or the relief of the suffering, it has been
-an undoubted success.</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>These reports were duly considered by the
-authorities; and after some discussion, it was resolved
-entirely to discontinue, in the male hospital
-ward, the employment of paupers as assistant nurses,
-and to substitute an additional number of probationers.
-A Sub-Committee of the Workhouse Committee was
-appointed to superintend and report upon the working
-of the system. These gentlemen devoted much time
-and attention to the subject, and at the close of the
-year undertook a minute inquiry into the operation
-of the old and new systems; examining personally
-the various officers of the Workhouse, from the
-Governor down to the pauper nurses in the female
-wards. Increased experience brought out in a yet
-stronger light the superior advantages of the employment
-of trained nurses. The very able, clear, and
-<span class="pb" id="Page_26">26</span>
-conclusive report of the Sub-Committee leaves little
-more to be said on the subject. It determined the
-Vestry to adopt the system in permanence, and to
-extend it to the whole of the Workhouse Infirmary,
-a year before the period fixed for the trial of the
-experiment had expired. It will be seen that the
-report of the second year&rsquo;s experience has a peculiar
-value, as bearing on the question whether, or how
-far, women may be competent to undertake one of
-the most delicate and difficult kinds of feminine
-work&mdash;one requiring special knowledge as well as
-special habits of punctual regularity, obedience, and
-thoughtfulness&mdash;without receiving any special training
-or education for such a duty. If the reforms
-about to be introduced into the pauper hospitals in
-London and elsewhere are not to end in failure and
-disappointment, provision must be made for training
-the nurses to be employed there, either before they
-enter the hospitals or within them.</p>
-<p>The report of the Sub-Committee of Superintendence
-is as follows:&mdash;</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>The Special Committee on Nursing, pursuant to resolution
-of the Workhouse Committee of the 7th of March instant,
-report,</p>
-<p>That the Men&rsquo;s Hospital (exclusive of fever patients) is at
-present exclusively nursed by skilled, <i>i. e.</i> specially trained
-nurses and paid assistants, who are themselves undergoing
-training as nurses; the staff consisting of the Superintendent,
-nine of the nurses originally sent from the Nightingale School,
-five nurses who have been trained in the Workhouse, and
-fifteen probationary or assistant nurses.</p>
-<p>Of the character of the nursing in this portion of the Workhouse,
-your Committee have heard but one opinion. The
-Governor and the Medical Officers concur in speaking of it in
-<span class="pb" id="Page_27">27</span>
-terms of the highest praise, and throughout the whole period
-during which the Committee have superintended it, no single
-circumstance has come to their knowledge calculated to make
-them speak of it otherwise than in terms of approval.</p>
-<p>The nursing of the women&rsquo;s wards continues to be done by
-paupers under the superintendence of paid officers. The
-superintendence of these officers is of necessity very imperfect,
-as not only has each charge of from 150 to 200 patients,
-but these patients are located in several rooms, each ward
-containing about twenty patients. The only portion of the
-nursing, properly so called, which these officers undertake, is
-the administration of stimulants and in some exceptional
-cases of medicine. The bulk of it, as the giving of medicine,
-the dressing of wounds, the distribution of food, is left to be
-done by paupers. So much has from time to time been said
-of the untrustworthiness of pauper nurses, of the evils
-resulting to those patients who are placed exclusively under
-them, of the mischievous consequences upon the discipline of
-the Workhouse of a large number of petty offices being filled
-by able-bodied women, that your Committee believe they
-rightly interpret the feeling of the Select Vestry, as they
-undoubtedly do that of the general public, in supposing that
-the actual nursing of the sick in the Liverpool Workhouse
-can no longer be left in the hands of pauper nurses.</p>
-<p>Starting from this point, your Committee considered that
-they had principally to inquire what sort of nursing can be
-most advantageously substituted for that of nursing by
-paupers. Two courses only appeared to be open to them&mdash;either
-to increase the number of paid officers, giving to each
-such a number of patients as she could reasonably be expected
-to look after, and treating each as an independent officer; or
-to extend over the whole hospital the system now in existence
-in the men&rsquo;s wards. Your Committee were much aided in
-forming a judgment upon this point, by what has taken place
-during the last few months in the fever hospital.</p>
-<p>Here, originally, the paid attendants were in precisely the
-same position, with precisely similar duties as the paid
-officers in the women&rsquo;s hospital; but the number of patients
-rapidly diminishing, and no corresponding reduction taking
-<span class="pb" id="Page_28">28</span>
-place in the number of officers, the staff was so large that Dr.
-Gee felt able to call upon the officers to act as nurses. The
-result was what might have been anticipated, that although
-an improvement upon the old system of nursing by paupers
-was perceptible, the state of the nursing was still far short of
-the standard reached in the men&rsquo;s wards.</p>
-<p>The officers were told to nurse, and they did their best,
-but never having themselves been taught, their attempts
-in a great measure failed; they were paid and retained as
-nurses, without being efficient nurses.</p>
-<p>Your Committee therefore recommend that as soon as
-the requisite number of trained nurses can be procured, the
-nursing in the women&rsquo;s hospital, and afterwards in the fever
-hospital, be placed in the hands of trained and skilled nurses,
-acting under the direction and control of Miss Jones, the
-present Superintendent. The expenses (beyond the item of
-wages) attendant upon the necessary increase in the number
-of nurses will not be great, as all that will be necessary
-will be to convert two of the rooms now used for sick boys
-into sleeping apartments for the nurses. In making this
-recommendation, the Committee are glad to know that they
-are fortified by the unanimous opinion of the Governor and
-the Medical Officers of the Workhouse.</p>
-<p>Your Committee are bound to add that they can produce
-no statistics shewing that the nursing in the men&rsquo;s hospital
-has been of any economical advantage to the Parish; but as
-it needs no argument to prove that the cheapest course
-that can be taken with a sick pauper is to cure him as
-quickly as possible; as it is evident that the care and
-attention of a skilled nurse must tend to a more speedy
-recovery; as the order and discipline of a well-regulated
-ward is more distasteful to many of the more worthless
-inmates, than the laxer management of a room in the hands
-of a pauper nurse; and as the abolition of a large number
-of petty offices for able-bodied paupers must lead to many of
-them leaving the Workhouse, there are strong grounds for
-hoping that the economical results of the change cannot
-but be beneficial.</p>
-<p>With regard to the future, your Committee recommend
-<span class="pb" id="Page_29">29</span>
-that the Department of Nursing should be placed under
-the direction of a small committee of your body, and that
-all changes in the staff should be made only by them. From
-information they have received, your Committee have reason
-to believe that if, after the Workhouse is supplied with Nurses,
-the two classes of nurses, <i>i.e.</i> trained nurses and probationers,
-be maintained, the cost of the Department may be considerably
-lessened by training nurses for other hospitals; the cost
-of the probationers being either paid for by a Government
-grant, or by the bodies for whom the nurses may be trained.</p>
-<p class="jr1">THOMAS H. SATCHELL,
-<br />RICHARD BRIGHT,
-<br />THOMAS OWEN.</p>
-<p><i>March 15, 1867.</i></p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>This report was unanimously adopted by the
-Workhouse Committee and by the Vestry; and already
-the new system has been extended to the
-Female Wards. It is in contemplation to extend it
-also to the Fever Hospital, as soon as a sufficient
-number of suitable nurses shall have been trained.</p>
-<p>It will be observed that the report contemplates
-the training of probationers for other Workhouse
-Infirmaries. And it is, indeed, to be hoped that in
-this and other ways the Liverpool Workhouse Hospital
-may serve as a normal school, from which the system
-there adopted may spread. The <i>special</i> expenses of
-such a school would naturally be borne by the parishes
-which profited by its services in educating nurses
-for them, or by the Government. But this point is
-one which, as yet, has hardly demanded practical
-consideration.</p>
-<p>The experiment whose results have been recorded,
-could hardly have been tried at all&mdash;certainly could
-<span class="pb" id="Page_30">30</span>
-not have achieved such rapid success&mdash;had it not
-been for the powerful and liberal assistance of Miss
-Nightingale, and the Trustees of the Nightingale
-Fund. Feeling how very important was the extension
-of the system of superior professional nursing, now
-gradually gaining ground in general hospitals, to
-workhouses, they sent, to assist in the initial experiment
-made in this direction, a lady superintendent
-and twelve superior nurses&mdash;a very expensive
-and quite invaluable contribution. To the Liverpool
-Vestry and its officers belongs the credit of having
-overcome all the difficulties, and persevered in spite
-of all the discouraging incidents, which necessarily
-attended an attempt to introduce a new system of
-management into such an institution as a Workhouse
-Hospital, combining as it does two subjects so different
-in their aspects and conditions of treatment, so difficult
-to deal with together, as pauperism and sickness.
-Of the Lady Superintendent I shall say little. When
-a lady leaves a happy home, and goes through a long
-and laborious course of training to fit herself for such
-a situation, purely because, feeling that she possessed
-the capacity for nursing, and the requisite health,
-energy, strength, and spirits, she desired to devote
-such powers to the service of those who stood most
-in need of them, human praise or criticism of her
-choice is out of place. One of the incidental results
-of her exertions has to her, no doubt, been even a
-higher reward than that improvement in the condition
-of the sick, in their progress towards recovery, and
-their material comfort, which has been the direct
-object of her labours. The improvement in the
-<span class="pb" id="Page_31">31</span>
-tone and behaviour of the patients has been wonderful.
-Many of the inmates of a pauper hospital are
-persons of the worst character, and its wards, under
-the control of pauper nurses, often present scenes so
-disgusting that the respectable poor shrink from them
-with utter abhorrence, and after once becoming acquainted
-with them, will often rather die than return
-thither. When the trained nurses were first introduced,
-the most offensive language was frequently
-heard in the wards; and the Lady Superintendent
-has repeatedly been obliged to call upon the Governor
-two or three times during one Sunday to use his
-authority to put a stop to actual fighting. Now,
-though his support is always promptly rendered, she
-is rarely compelled to apply for it; the feeling of the
-wards promptly suppresses all offensive language or
-unseemly behaviour in the presence of the nurses.
-The following letter from Sir H. Verney, Chairman of
-the Nightingale Committee, serves to illustrate the
-influence of the nurses upon the conduct of the
-patients; he came down to Liverpool to inspect the
-Hospital, and ascertain the progress of the work:&mdash;</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="jr1"><span class="sc">Liverpool</span>, <i>October 3, 1866</i>.</p>
-<p><span class="sc">My dear Sir</span>,</p>
-<p>By the kindness of Mr. Carr I have paid a visit
-to the Workhouse, and have been greatly interested by
-remarking the change among the male pauper sick, effected
-since I was here about two years since. I conclude that
-this is owing to the nursing by a class of females so entirely
-different to those who nursed the male paupers at
-that time, and who still nurse the female sick. I have
-always seen that the influence of respectable and well-educated
-females over the most debased men is very
-<span class="pb" id="Page_32">32</span>
-striking. Men of that character, accustomed to intercourse
-with only degraded women, feel the restraining and humanizing
-power of virtuous and well-mannered females. They
-have never been admitted into intercourse with such before,
-and they are most beneficially affected by it. I have been
-told that the police officers, who sometimes come to the
-Workhouse on business, and who see the sick paupers, are
-much astonished. They see the men whom they have
-known as the very worst characters, conducting themselves
-with propriety and decency, and giving no cause of complaint.</p>
-<p>I am sure that the Workhouse Committee must rejoice
-and feel thankful that there is such a change in the
-condition of the poor creatures brought under their rule.</p>
-<p>Miss Jones, and her nurses and probationers, must have
-had much difficulty at first&mdash;indeed their work is still very
-trying; but the improved demeanour of the men must be
-highly gratifying and encouraging to them. I walked through
-the female sick wards; they were clean and sweet, but I
-could not help contrasting the pauper nurses who attended
-them, with the intelligent-looking respectable attendants of
-the men.</p>
-<p>I thank you for the note of introduction which procured
-admission for me, and</p>
-<p class="center">I am,
-<br />Yours very faithfully,
-<span class="lr">HARRY VERNEY.</span></p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>Such, and so entirely satisfactory to the Guardians,
-were the results of the experiment of nursing by
-trained nurses, as tried for two years in the Male
-Wards of the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. It
-is in order to render those results, the experience
-acquired in this initiatory attempt, available for the
-assistance and encouragement of others, that they
-have been thus briefly recorded. Much more might
-have been said; but what is here set down is sufficient
-<span class="pb" id="Page_33">33</span>
-to explain all that practical men would wish to know,
-and it would be presumption to waste the time
-of such men with comments and inferences which
-they are perfectly able to make for themselves.</p>
-<p>One suggestion, in conclusion, I may be permitted
-to offer. In all unions or parishes where additional
-accommodation may be required, whether for patients
-or for healthy paupers, it is eminently desirable that
-in providing it regard should be had to the entire
-separation, at once or at a future time, of the sick
-and infirm from the able-bodied, as will be the case,
-at least partially, under the new r&eacute;gime introduced
-in the Metropolis by Mr. Gathorne Hardy&rsquo;s Bill.
-Miss Nightingale has from the first held and expressed
-a strong opinion in favour of the separation
-of the hospital and workhouse administrations. The
-Governor of the Liverpool Workhouse, Mr. Carr, expressed
-himself decidedly in the same sense; and the
-Chairman of the Workhouse Committee and of the
-Sub-Committee appointed to superintend the Hospital,
-has been induced by practical experience warmly to
-advocate the absolute separation of the Workhouse
-and the Infirmary. So large a proportion of the able-bodied
-inmates of the workhouse are drunken, lazy,
-and vicious, that, if the poor-law relief is not to
-become a temptation and an injury to the honest
-and struggling poor, the discipline must be almost
-of a penal character. The paramount object must be
-to make the workhouse, if not absolutely unpleasant,
-less agreeable than the condition of laborious and
-striving poverty. On the other hand, in a hospital
-the paramount and almost the only object is
-<span class="pb" id="Page_34">34</span>
-to promote recovery and to mitigate suffering; all
-other considerations yield to this, and consequently
-the treatment must necessarily be liberal in spirit and
-indulgent in fact. The modes of treatment necessary
-for the good management of the hospital patient and
-of the able-bodied pauper, respectively, are distinct&mdash;almost
-opposite: the infirmary and the workhouse
-must be controlled on divergent, and even contrary
-principles; and by bringing the two together under
-one roof and one administration, they injure each
-other. The indulgence of the infirmary creeps into
-the workhouse, or the sternness of workhouse rules
-cripples the benevolent energy which should rule the
-infirmary. And the treatment of the able-bodied
-pauper becomes too lax, or he is tempted to scheme,
-and does scheme, to get himself transferred to the
-more comfortable quarters close at hand; a desire so
-prevalent as to give rise to malingering&mdash;the wilful
-production of disease: while, partly no doubt in order
-to counteract this tendency, there is in such mixed
-establishments an unconscious disposition to treat the
-hospital patient with the same stern economy that
-is justly made the rule in dealing with able-bodied
-pauperism, but which, in the infirmary, is not only
-cruel, but in the long run is not truly economical.
-Another most serious evil is entailed upon the hospital
-by connexion with the workhouse. The habits and
-traditions prevalent among the habitual paupers&mdash;able-bodied
-paupers&mdash;in the workhouse (at least in
-the workhouse of a large town), are too often deeply
-infected with cunning, deception, and dishonesty of
-all sorts, against which strict precaution and stern
-<span class="pb" id="Page_35">35</span>
-repression are requisite; and it is most important
-that no communication should be allowed, whereby
-these habits of vice and stratagem might be introduced
-into the hospital, where indulgence is the rule,
-and where many things strictly denied to the inmates
-of the workhouse, as stimulants for instance, are
-necessarily permitted. The introduction of workhouse
-tricks into a hospital, where they cannot be met by
-workhouse control, must bring in an element of confusion,
-disorder, and waste, and therefore the intercommunication
-which might introduce those tricks
-should be as effectually prevented as possible, which
-it cannot be while the two institutions are, as at
-present, combined. The two systems&mdash;to use an
-English word in its French sense&mdash;demoralize each
-other; and even in the English sense, their union
-demoralizes the individuals subject to each.</p>
-<p>When this is better understood and more clearly
-apprehended, as it soon will be, through the experience
-of several Unions in which the separation has been
-already resolved on&mdash;it is probable that it will be
-enforced by law. This may be expected to take place
-in no very long time; and then it will be found that
-any expenditure incurred in providing increased accommodation
-on a plan which does not recognise the
-necessity of separation has been, in part at least,
-thrown away; and the work will have to be done,
-and the money to be spent, over again.</p>
-<h2 id="c1">Footnotes</h2>
-<div class="fnblock"><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_1" href="#fr_1">[1]</a>Liverpool is a seaport, and a receptacle where the poverty and vice of
-Great Britain and Ireland seem to accumulate; and it is probably on this
-account that the able-bodied female paupers are peculiarly vicious and
-worthless.
-</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_2" href="#fr_2">[2]</a>Among the replies of the London medical officers, one which seemed
-especially to impress the Sub-Committee was given by the senior honorary
-medical officer of St. Thomas&rsquo;s. Mr. Hagger asked him, &ldquo;If you had to cure
-the sick by contract at so much a head, and had to choose between unpaid
-pauper nurses allotted to you gratis, or paying yourself for skilled nurses,
-which would you choose?&rdquo; &ldquo;To pay for skilled nurses, certainly,&rdquo; was the
-unhesitating answer.
-</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_3" href="#fr_3">[3]</a>In the opinion of the medical men of the Liverpool Workhouse Hospital,
-647 of its present number of patients would be admissible to an ordinary
-hospital, and
-<table class="center">
-<tr><td class="l">Men&mdash;Medical </td><td class="r">40</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l"><span class="hst">&rdquo;</span><span class="hst"> Surgical</span> </td><td class="r">80</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l">Women&mdash;Medical </td><td class="r">40</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l"><span class="hst">&rdquo;</span><span class="hst"> Surgical</span> </td><td class="r"><span class="u">60</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l"> </td><td class="r">220 </td><td class="l">would not be admissible.</td></tr>
-</table>
-</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_4" href="#fr_4">[4]</a>In a training school for superior nurses, it will <i>never</i> be desirable to
-employ pauper under-nurses, as they interfere with the efficiency of the
-probationers, who are being trained as superior nurses. The latter are apt to
-delegate to the paupers much of the hard but most instructive part of their
-work. In ordinary workhouse hospitals, when there are no probationers,
-a certain number of pauper assistants may perhaps be useful in aiding
-thoroughly trained nurses.
-</div>
-</div>
-<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">LONDON: R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.</span></p>
-<h2>Transcriber&rsquo;s Notes</h2>
-<ul><li>Retained publication information from the printed exemplar (this eBook is in the public domain in the country of publication.)</li>
-<li>Only in the text versions, delimited italicized text with _underscores_.</li>
-<li>Silently corrected several typos.</li></ul>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
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-
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