In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

An Introduction to Volume 12 F lorence Nightingale is still probably best known as the major founder of the profession of nursing. This and the next volume report the core work she did to establish and oversee the training school established in her name, the Nightingale School at St Thomas’ Hospital, and to extend trained nursing from the school throughout Britain and the wider world. Nursing material has already appeared in several of the earlier volumes; a substantial amount on workhouse infirmary nursing appears in volume 6, Public Health Care, where Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing for the Labouring Classes also appears in a critical edition. Her pioneering study of maternal mortality post-childbirth is reproduced and analyzed in volume 8, Women, as part of her work on midwifery nursing. There is material on nursing in India in volumes 9 and 10, Health in India and Social Reform in India. Nursing in the Crimean War and other wars appears in volumes 13 and 14, and some nursing material is also in volume 16, Hospital Reform, where the focus is rather on hospital construction and administration. All of the volumes in the series include some nursing material, although those on family background (volume 1, Life and Family, and volume 7, European Travels), on her faith (volumes 2, 3, 4 and 8) and volume 5, Society and Politics, deal rather with motivation and preparation than the work itself. Volume 12, The Nightingale School, begins with Nightingale’s own preparation for nursing at Kaiserswerth (1851), Paris hospitals (1853) and the Establishment for Gentlewomen during Illness (1853-54). The Crimean War material is in volume 14, so that nursing is picked up again in this volume with the creation of the Nightingale Fund (in 1855), which paid for the school opened at St Thomas’ Hospital in 1860. The bulk of the volume reports the operation of the Nightingale School from 1860 to the end of Nightingale’s working life, roughly 1900. Her ‘‘addresses’’ to probationers and nurses, in effect, public letters on nursing, are included as well. / 1 Volume 12 also reports the second edition of Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing, termed the ‘‘library standard’’ edition for its more elevated language. It was the edition sent to Queen Victoria and other members of the royal family. Next are Nightingale’s two articles, on nurse training and hospital nursing for Quain’s Dictionary, which permit a useful comparison of her views on nursing roughly twenty years after Notes on Nursing. The vexatious issue of the state registration of nurses makes up the last regular section of volume 12. Finally, in two appendixes, there are biographical sketches of major nursing leaders (Appendix A), and the rules and method of application to the Nightingale School (Appendix B). Volume 13, Extending Nursing, relates Nightingale’s work parallel to that of the Nightingale School to take trained nursing to hospitals throughout the world. After a substantial section on nursing in British hospitals other than St Thomas’, there is still quite a sizable amount of material on Nightingale’s influence in Australia, Europe, the United States and Canada, and to a lesser degree on her influence in other countries. There are major sections on nursing in the workhouse infirmaries in Britain, and on district nursing. Again, biographical sketches of the major nursing leaders appear at the end of the volume. The material in both volumes, as throughout the series, is organized thematically, in chronological order within each section. Letters of course often dealt with numerous subjects, requiring some to be split, while omissions were made for others. Often peripheral material appears, and of course there are personal remarks. There is more repetition than one would like, for Nightingale often had occasion to repeat herself to different people and institutions. Sometimes the same points had to be made year after year, or country after country, as requests for assistance came in. Duplicate material is cut as much as practicable, but often the material is needed for context on a point at issue. Nightingale’s Nursing: An Introduction Nightingale was not the first person to try to reform or otherwise improve nursing, but she was the first who sought to make it a paid profession for women. She herself was deeply religious, and she thought that faith was an excellent motivator and help in such onerous work. Moreover, she believed that the work itself should be paid, not voluntary, and the qualifications trained experience, not religious 2 / Florence Nightingale: The Nightingale School...

Share