204 A Short History of Nursing found to be indispensable. The anti-tuberculosis movement emphasized instruction, and rightly so. Its vast proportions, however, made it too often im- possible for the nurse to do anything except instruct. A danger lay here, which the visiting nurse proper — she who observed as closely as possible the standards of the best private duty nursing care in her handwork with the sick — deplored, but it re- mained in the structure of much of the work with tuberculosis. Teaching, alone, has not the same magnetic power as teaching and doing, when effec- tively combined . ' ' The word that sticks is the word that follows work" said Florence Nightingale. The promises shown in the work with tubercu- losis next led boards of health to use the nurse for instructive visiting nursing in the tenements and crowded quarters, and especially in the case of the contagious diseases of childhood, grave complica- tions and sequels are often avoided by such timely home teaching. A factor in public health preservation which has been long regarded as highly important in other countries, is one that remained obscure, Midwifery a ' neglected even taboo, in this country, until it branch of taken Up for study by a group of public health j j f social workers in New York City and an inquiry into conditions made under their aus-
