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while that visitor, an old procuress, comes. Also, she has a correspondence , then the order is given: no visitors and no letters to Elizabeth Humber; no letters did come; had they come, Miss Hill would have taken them to her herself. A magdalen ward requires a needlewoman nurse to teach. Taking in needlework might be made lucrative. Hair must be quite plain and smooth under cap. Chignons burnt. Miss Hill has never had to expel any for this or breaking of any rule. But she threatens to remove them to (un)padded ward downstairs. She never has had to do so. But if she did, she would never let them come up again. Nurse always syringes patient herself, eighteen, one after the other, in small examination room fitted up with bed, never more than one in it at a time, never more than one in bath at a time, bathe two and three times a day. Screen cases: nurse always with only one nurse, but then ward sometimes left without one. Yes, but it is like a school—they take the tone of the ward—you must establish a tone in the ward. Nurse out every other Sunday evening. Miss Hill then takes it herself . Great thing is to separate all women over thirty: bad influences from the rest. Eighteen beds, eight in small ward for women over thirty. Jane Senior, First Woman Poor Law inspector Editor: Jane Senior (1828-77), wife of the noted political economist Nassau Senior, was appointed the first woman Poor Law assistant inspector in 1873, by the progressive Liberal president of the Local Government Board, James Stansfeld. She was made inspector the following year. Her responsibilties included schools as well as workhouse infirmaries , and Nightingale drafted a questionnaire for her on workhouse schools (below). Senior’s strong preference for the ‘‘boarding out’’ (foster care) of orphan children, rather than their being housed in workhouses, met with Nightingale’s hearty approval. Some material on this theme appears in Public Health Care (6:438), while this volume contains more on broad health considerations, of both schools and boarding, with the weakness of the children, the need for fresh air, diet and loving care being paramount. Some quite original views for the time appear in this correspondence , such as the notion that every child ‘‘ought to have a nurse to themselves.’’ Nightingale’s preference for mixing children in adult wards was prompted by just that consideration. Adult patients (not surgical) could give individual attention to a child in a neighbouring Nursing in Workhouse Infirmaries / 639 bed, each benefiting from the contact. Her antipathy for infirmary wards in schools was strongly stated, as she felt that they combined ‘‘all hospital disadvantages, all school disadvantages, all home disadvantages , without the advantages of any’’ (see p 645 below). Training for midwifery nursing is another subject of the correspondence with Senior, as Nightingale saw workhouse infirmaries as safer places than regular hospitals for this crucial task. Nightingale had broached the subject before, and would again, but nothing ever came of it. Source: From a letter to Jane Senior, Clendening History of Medicine Library, Kansas University Medical Center 28 January 1873 I rejoice more than I can say that you have this work to do—you are the person to do it—and no one else. And, though I would most gladly serve as your handmaid in it, if I could, yet I am much more glad that this work has you to do it and that you and no one else have it to do. The inquiry is one of the highest importance and will take a very long time to do it justice. You have all the three classes of schools to compare, and very likely you will scarcely find any two alike, even in the same class. Though I am sure that I cannot give you any hints but what, if they are worth anything, you will have anticipated, yet, as you are so very good as to ask me, I will say that I should begin by the essential but least practical part, the statistical. I should open the inquiry by some Statistical Table: 1. Name of School a. District b. Separate c. Workhouse 2. When established 3. No. of Inmates (average last year) 4. Yearly Admissions 5. Yearly Deaths and Causes of Death 6. Yearly Discharges a. to service b. to friends c. other causes 7. Nos. of girls for every 5 years of age 0-5 5...

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