Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/146

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
130
A Short History of Nursing

130 A Short History of Nursing with Harriet Martineau in the articles written by the latter on the Regulation of Vice, giving her many figures to use. She also in 1862 wrote a confidential paper for the government on the Continental system of the regulation of prosti- tution. In 1858 she was elected a member of the statistical society. She was a pioneer in the graphic method of exhibiting and working out adequate hospital records, correct mortality tables, and a logical classification of diseases. She worked with the promoters of the better-housing question, and earnestly advocated village hygiene in rural regions, and the training of health visitors. She co-operated with Mr. Rathbone of Liverpool in founding district nursing in 1862, and gave him the counsel by which the Royal Infirmary of Liverpool was brought to train nurses for this and other purposes. In 1865 she was instrumental in placing Agnes Jones in the workhouse infirmary at Liverpool. This began the transformation of those places of horror to well-managed, model hospitals. Miss Nightingale also wrote timely letters to the press when district nursing was about to be established in London on a wide scale. Her clear and forceful ideas on public health preservation, popular methods of iteaching health principles, and the care of children, under-