Medieval medical miniatures

When the proposed scheme was put to Florence Nightingale, she replied politely but less than enthusiastically. She was at the time still nursing in the Crimean War, much preoccupied with the present and future health of the army and very unsure of her own. Although she had in the past visited a number of hospitals both in Britain and Europe and had herself "trained" at Kaiserswerth Institution, she had not found any system of training hospital nurses to her satisfaction; nor had she worked out any plans of her own. As she replied to Sidney Herbert, "It would have been reasonable to have asked for a prospectus of my plans if I had originally asked for the money, which of course I did not. But to furnish a cut and dried prospectus of my plans, situated as I am here ... is what I would not if I could, and could not if I would." Despite her reluctance Florence Nightingale, with the funds of a grateful nation to hand, eventually had to specify her plans. To her old friend, Mrs Bracebridge, she wrote, ".. . if I had a plan it would simply be to take the poorest and least organised hospital and, putting myself there, see what I could do-not touching the Fund for years until experience had shown how the Fund might best be available". On 9 July 1860, the experiment in training nurses began. Fifteen probationers arrived at the Nightingale School at St Thomas's Hospital. Monica Baly shows how the Nightingale Fund affected the Nightingale School, midwifery training, Poor Law nursing, district nursing, and nursing in military hospitals. She describes how the experiment evolved with its full share of failures and compromises as well as successes and has left as a legacy some problems which have lasted to this day. It is surprising to read of the protracted negotiations between Miss Nightingale and St Thomas's which preceded the foundation of the nursing school and to find that she did not always get her own way. Nor did the Fund Council give unanimous approval to the final result. Mr Bracebridge, for one, objected to the regulations for the nurses. He protested, "It was always intended from the first ... to establish a profession"; but despite expectation of tuition from a medical officer and Sisters, the probationers' training was in fact to be a working apprenticeship with a contract …