330 A Short History of Nursing their lives to the service of the sick and helpless in all the ages of the world's history, we wonder if any profession ever had such inspiring examples or such splendid traditions of human service. In the face of almost overwhelming difficulties, hampered by every kind of restriction, beset by all the forces of ignorance and superstition, we have seen how untiringly they laboured, clearing away the ob- structions from our path, and building the founda- tions on which our work of the present day rests. If we consider the long period of nursing history as a whole, we see how uneven and halting the line of advancement was, rising by slow stages for many centuries, reaching a fairly high crest of enthusiasm and activity from about the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, only to fall back again into the long dark period of disorganization and decay, which extended from the sixteenth century right up to the threshold of modern times. The reforms of the seventeenth century in France and of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth cen- tury in England and Germany start the line up- ward again, but progress is exceedingly slow till we pass the middle of the last century when we begin to get the sharply ascending curve marking the influence of Florence Nightingale and the dis- coveries of modern medical science.
