The history of nursing

Some form of nursing care has probably been practiced for thousands of years. For example, the early Israelites and Egyptians hired women, later called midwives, who assisted at births.

Nurses first organized in groups during early Christian times. Noblewomen, including the wives of the emperors, helped care for the ill in ancient Rome. During the Crusades, military nursing orders of monks and knights tended the sick and wounded.

Many monasteries closed during the Reformation, and there were only a few places where religious orders could nurse the sick. The years from 1600 to 1850 were the darkest period in the history of nursing. Hospitals often were built as charity hospitals and were usually staffed by untrained, sometimes disreputable, women. Wealthy people never went to hospitals. The importance of sanitation and hygiene was unknown. People did not understand how diseases spread. Nurses who took care of patients with contagious diseases often contracted these diseases themselves.

Nursing as we know it began in the 1850's with the work of the English nurse Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern professional nursing. Nightingale established the first school of nursing, the Nightingale Training School for Nurses, in London in 1860. Graduates of this school traveled to all parts of the world to teach nursing.

The first nursing schools in the United States were established in 1873 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Bellevue Hospital in New York City, and the New Haven (Conn.) Hospital. The American Nurses' Association, Inc., an organization of registered nurses, was organized in 1896.

Excerpt adapted from the "Nursing" article, The World Book Encyclopedia © 1999