Nursing and Midwifery Timeline
Nursing and Midwifery in the early 19th century – a brief background
Before the advent of training, nursing was often casual and low paid. Pay in London voluntary hospitals was between 6 shillings and 9s 6d a week, with some board and lodging. Outside London pay was much lower. Few nurses were described as educated. Facilities in hospitals were poor, though some began to provide meals for nurses. Sisters were recruited separately from nurses and were more respectable, and matrons, whose work was largely administrative, even more so. During 19th century, anyone could call themselves a nurse. However, as medical practices developed, the range of knowledge and skills required of nurses was increasing. For example, with the introduction of anaesthesia, surgical nurses became responsible for post anaesthesia care. They also administered the new analgesics introduced for pain relief. As knowledge of diseases increased, nurses were required to monitor and report patients’ symptoms, and as germ theory became accepted, they worked to control infection.
Before the advent of training, nursing was often casual and low paid. Pay in London voluntary hospitals was between 6 shillings and 9s 6d a week, with some board and lodging. Outside London pay was much lower. Few nurses were described as educated. Facilities in hospitals were poor, though some began to provide meals for nurses. Sisters were recruited separately from nurses and were more respectable, and matrons, whose work was largely administrative, even more so. During 19th century, anyone could call themselves a nurse. However, as medical practices developed, the range of knowledge and skills required of nurses was increasing. For example, with the introduction of anaesthesia, surgical nurses became responsible for post anaesthesia care. They also administered the new analgesics introduced for pain relief. As knowledge of diseases increased, nurses were required to monitor and report patients’ symptoms, and as germ theory became accepted, they worked to control infection.
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The Dickensian image of the gin-swilling, unkempt ‘Sairey Gamp’ type midwife devalued any knowledge base on which practice was established. It gave the impression that these women were unscientific and therefore unsafe, despite there now being available evidence of ‘unofficial’ systems of training from at least the seventeenth century in London.
Even though this training existed, it would not have been based on a formal understanding of human anatomy / physiology or the potential value of ‘scientific’ intervention. The midwives who cared for women giving birth could have been considered as ill prepared or even dangerous by those in the developing scientific community despite the fact that, both historically and internationally, birth was normally successfully accomplished under these conditions. In Britain, there were moves to try to organise lay midwives through regulation; the Obstetrical Society (an organisation of male practitioners) from 1826 tried to make a case for this with some success. |
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But possibly the most significant development was in mid century, when the Royal Colleges in Britain established examinations for male practitioners in midwifery. This put the final seal on the exclusion of women from controlling midwifery as women were unable to attend university and, therefore, take these exams.
Extracts taken from: https://memoriesofnursing.uk/
Extracts taken from: https://memoriesofnursing.uk/
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