NURSING THE SICK 
AND 
THE TRAINING OF NURSES. 
AN ADDRESS 
DELIVERED AT THE BEQUEST OF THE BOARD OF MANAGERS OF THE 
WOMAN’S HOSPITAL, AT PHILADELPHIA, 
At the Assembly Buildings, May 21st, 1863. 
si 
By ANN PRESTON, M. D. 
PUBLISHED BY THE BOARD OF MANAGERS. 
PHILADELPHIA: 
KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, No. 607 SANSOM STREET. 
1 8 6 3 Among the many wants of society at this period, there is 
perhaps none more imperative, and none more inadequately 
supplied, than that of good nurses. The need is not only for a 
band of educated professional nurses, who shall be fitted to 
enter the sick homes of strangers, bearing soothing in their very 
footsteps and anodyne in their quiet touch; but also for that 
knowledge and training among women generally which may 
enable them to sooth and nurse into health their own beloved 
ones when smitten with disease. 
Here in the beginning it may be well to ask what are the 
qualities and attainments requisite in a good nurse ? and how 
may they be possessed ? 
It is interesting to observe that the first virtues in character 
must form the basis upon which to develop a good nurse, as well 
as a good worker in any of the important departments of society. 
Conscientiousness and benevolence, as well as good common 
sense and clear perceptions, must exist in the first place, and 
then careful training and the knowledge derived from experi- 
ence, or peculiar natural insight must be added, before we can 
say of any woman, “she is one of the best of nurses.” 
First, as regards the specific value of conscientiousness in 
this matter. I think it may be set down as a rule that the 
comfort of the very sick depends largely, often principally, upon 
the personal character of the nurse. 
No matter how enlightened and comfortable may be the 
general regulations of a home or of a public institution, that 
person who is constantly with the sufferer and applies or 
excludes the various appliances, determines at last whether or 
not they ensure his comfort and help, or whether their end is 
altogether defeated. A damp sheet, a badly-prepared meal, the 4 
neglect of an hour in administering restoratives or food, a rude 
jar at the critical period when a quiet sleep is the one thing 
needed, often may determine the issue of an illness ; and the 
nurse, without a strict inward sense of rectitude to keep her 
steadily in the path of duty, cannot be safely intrusted with the 
helplessness of her charge. Besides this, there is very com- 
monly an extreme susceptibility in the sick to the moral 
atmosphere about them. They feel the healthful influence of 
the presence of a true-hearted attendant, and repose in it, 
although they may not be able to define the cause ; and dis- 
simulation, falsehood, recklessness, coarseness, jar terribly and 
injuriously upon their heightened sensibilities. 
“Are the Sisters of Mercy”—the Catholic nuns—“really 
better nurses than most other women ?” I asked of an intelli- 
gent lady who had seen much of our military hospitals. “ Yes, 
they are,” was her reply. “ Why should it be so ?” “ I think 
it is because they are more unconscious of self,” she replied; 
adding, “ with them it is a work of self-abnegation, of duty to 
God, and they are so quiet and self-forgetful in its exercise that 
they do it better; while many of our women who go there 
show such self-consciousness ! 0 they are so fussy !” 
The importance of benevolence—of overflowing kindness— 
will be readity perceived. There is a great difference in diseases 
as regards their influence upon the temper, but the sick, with 
many beautiful exceptions, are irritable and exacting; they 
make heavy demands on those about them and often never 
know it. Dr. Johnson says, “every sick man is a rascal;” 
Dr. Holmes affirms that we are all egotists in sickness, and that 
after a month or two of fever and starvation, the greatest man 
comes near that definition of an animal—“a stomach ministered 
to by organs.” I confess it has surprised me to see how the 
most self-sacrificing and considerate of others in health, seem, 
in the many and imperative wants of sickness, to lose all con- 
sideration for the weariness and privations of those who attend 
them, even though these be the nearest and dearest of relatives. 
Doubtless this is a wise provision in nature, to ensure them the 
attentions they need, and upon which their lives may depend; 
and beneficently they are spared the additional suffering of 
realizing how terribly they are draining the strength of others ; 5 
but it is also a trial of patience and endurance on the part of 
the nurse, which only overflowing benevolence or warm per- 
sonal attachment can meet with perfect sweetness. 
It seems almost impossible to make the strong believe that 
things “light as air”—the very grasshoppers—become to the 
sick a heavy burden that cannot be borne : the sunlight of 
heaven, so necessary and healthfully stimulating, grows too 
sharp and exhausting; the sound that once was unheeded 
strikes like a dagger. A little impatience or severity, reproving 
tones or looks, neglect of real or fancied wants, may depress or 
agonize the nervous system of the sufferer, and prevent the 
rest, or sleep, or appetite for food, upon which comfort and 
recovery may depend. 
A woman, a few days before her death, and struggling with 
extreme weakness and suffering, once told me;that a common 
acquaintance that morning had scolded her for not bearing her 
sufferings more patiently. “ It seems vei*y hard,” she said, “to 
be thus reproved when one feels that she is straining every 
nerve to the uttermost to endure.” Yes, it was hard, and 
unjust as hard; but little did that self-complacent reprover 
comprehend the amount of suffering to which she was adding 
the last bitter measure. A few more drops of the milk of 
human kindness, however, might have quickened her insight. 
“I wouldn’t humor such notions,” is a common remark frdrn 
some impatient Mrs. Wise-one, who will sometimes cruelly 
recite a long story of the whims and complaints of the sufferer 
to justify the harsh word and severe judgment, and end by 
saying, “she needn’t be so unreasonable if she ifi sick !” 
Ladies, sick people are like children. They feel what they 
want without reasoning much upon it. Let us now, while in 
comparative health, fortify ourselves by self-discipline and self- 
renunciation, by reason and religion, all that we may; let the 
children be trained to endurance and self-restraint, let home 
discipline be thorough, and let no weak tenderness give present 
gratification at the expense of future suffering; but in the 
sweet name of mercy, spare the racked with illness—the smitten 
of nature—all your homilies and wise reproofs. The sick bed 
has its own teachers—teachers as stern as justice—and needs 
not our additions ; and they who will not try to humor the 6 
little harmless whims and notions of the sick, who indulge in 
sharp words and tones and looks, and will protest and argue 
before they are willing to stop the rattling of the windows, the 
grating conversation, or any other disturbing thing, and who do 
not know, through the intuitions of their own good hearts, that 
annoyances drain the vitality of the weak, and that a word or 
act that banishes doubt or anxiety is a healing elixir, may in- 
deed be fitted for some rough work in this work-day world, but 
they are surely out of place in that chamber which weakness 
and suffering should ever make sacred. “ Don’t cross me,” said 
a sick friend, whose temper in health was the sweetest, “ I can’t 
bear it;” and they soothed her in her need, and soon she could 
bear crosses. 
God himself made and commissioned one set of nurses ; and 
in doing this, and adapting them to utter helplessness and weak- 
ness, what did He do ? He made them love the dependence and 
see something to admire in the very perversities of their charge ; 
he made them humor their caprices, and respect their reason- 
able and unreasonable complainings. He made them bend 
tenderly over the disturbed and irritated and fold them to quiet 
assurance in arms made soft with love ; in a word, He made 
mothers! and other things being equal, whoever has most of 
the material tenderness and warm sympathy with the sufferer, 
is the best nurse. 
Common sense, which is closely related to good judgment, is 
also essential in the nurse, but as this is the gift of Providence 
and “ comes by nature,” and as those who are deficient will 
never be taught»it, and never be aware of their deficiency, we 
need not dwell upon this point of the subject. 
But persons may be conscientious, benevolent, and also pos- 
sess good judgment in many respects, and yet be poor care- 
takers of the well and miserable nurses of the sick, for want of 
training and right knowledge upon the subject. And this fact 
is the especial point of the present effort. 
We are not all fairly dispossessed of the idea that if people are 
cured of their diseases it is the doctor alone that cures them, and 
if they die it is the doctor’s fault—as, indeed, sometimes it may 
be—and we are slow to learn the mighty influence of common 
agencies, the greatness of little things in their bearing upon life 7 
and health. Many things, it seems, we must learn by stern ex- 
perience. “ It takes no strength to stand,” says the thought- 
less, vigorous boy; but, when on arising from a sick-bed, his 
knees smite together, his brain reels, and he falls from weak- 
ness, he has a new insight as regards the strength required to 
stand. So the woman who believes that it takes no strength to 
bear a little noise, or some disagreeable announcement, and 
loses all patience with the weak, nervous invalid who is ago- 
nized with creaking doors and shoes, and loud, shrill voices, and 
rustling papers, and sharp, fidgety motions, and the whispering 
so strangely common in the sick room and so generally and 
acutely distressing to the sufferer, always corrects this misap- 
prehension, during a spell of nervous fever. 
“ Why did you not keep your nurse ?” asked an intelligent 
and very healthy woman of one who had charge of several sick 
persons. “ Because the patients disliked her, and always seemed 
disturbed by her presence.” “ But it does not seem to me that 
their whims should be consulted in the case,” was the reply. 
Ladies, sick people have their whims by right. “ Instinct is 
a great matter.” It exists before reason, and it is true. In- 
stincts are the great conservators of animal life. They are 
most obvious and guiding before reason is developed in the 
child, and they recur in primitive force and for preserving pur- 
poses, in the weakness and helplessness of extreme illness. 
Even in the wanderings of delirium, their pointings cannot be 
rightly disregarded. The instinct of the sick that loves the 
presence of one person, and is disturbed and fretted by that of 
another, is unerring nature pointing to the means that may be 
potent either for increased suffering or for soothing and healing. 
We may think it all foolish and disagreeable for patients to be 
so whimsical, but a Reason finer than our clumsy understand- 
ings decided these repulsions and attractions, and it is the part 
of wisdom to respect them. 
“ Oh !” said an invalid, “ it was so refreshing to have 
come to my sick room ; she glided in so gently; she never 
began to speak till she reached the bedside, and then she said 
just the right thing.” 
A rapid refinement, an exceeding acuteness of the senses, is 
the result of many forms of illness. A heavy breath in the 8 
nurse, an unwashed hand, a noise that would not have been 
noticed in health, a crooked table cover, or bed-spread, may 
disturb or oppress; and more than one invalid has spoken in 
my hearing of the sickening effect produced by the nurse tast- 
ing her food and blowing into her drinks to make them cool. 
One woman, a sensible woman too, told me that her nurse had 
turned a large cushion upon her bureau with the back part in 
front, and she determined not to be disturbed nor to speak of 
such a trifle, but after struggling three hours in vain to banish 
the annoyance, she was forced to ask to have the cushion put 
right. 
If persons generally were taught to appreciate, properly, the 
great difference in the constitution and requirements of different 
persons, and to respect more fully the instincts of nature, good 
nurses would not be so few ; but certain notions claim the first 
place. For instance, it is known that the sick take cold readily, 
and to prevent this, I have seen windows and doors closed in 
the heat of summer, where a child, sinking with dysentery, and 
wet with perspiration, was lying beside its sick mother, both 
suffering, sinking for want of the pure air that all were afraid 
to let into that polluted room. Again, I have known clothes 
heaped upon a sufferer despite of his agonized protestations 
that he was oppressed with heat, and that by kind hands, too, 
but they valued their OAvn notions of his requirements more 
than his feelings ; and they were wrong. 
Others, in carrying out the newly grasped truth, that all need 
fresh air, pay no respect to the chilly, susceptible condition of 
one who, from constitution or some peculiar condition, requires 
more clothing, and invariably takes cold when exposed to the 
slightest draught or dampness. “ Fresh air is poison to me,” 
said a sick one who had suffered in this way; and many illnesses, 
doubtless, owe their fatal result to a want of discrimination in 
the use of the great gift of pure air. 
The conversation which is so easy and delightful to the 
strong, is often prolonged by friends, and physicians, too, to the 
serious injury of the sufferer. “I grewiiot, and I grew cold,” 
said a lady, “ but I said nothing, still hoping the friends Avould 
Avithdraw, but they talked on and on, and the air in the room 
grew close, and, afterwards, I tossed and turned and sleep 9 
would not come.” Evening visits are especially exhausting and 
injurious. 
Although it is true that visitors are commonly drains upon 
the strength of the weak, yet it is also true that sometimes the 
sufferer needs the assuring visit of some judicious friend, and 
there is no place in which fitting words are more emphatically 
like apples of gold in pictures of silver than in the sick room. 
A distressing incident or bitter memory, cannot be put aside and 
forgotten as it may be in health ; it clings, and haunts, and 
stings; some friendly assistance is needed to drive*away the 
tormentor, and they who, from the pure fountains of their own 
hearts, bring fitting and comforting words, mingled with the 
“silence which is golden,” whether they be called nurses or by 
some other name, are truly ministering angels, bearing sweet- 
ness and healing to the chamber of suffering. 
But comforting words are not the only means of soothing the 
invalid. They who have seen despondency made restful com- 
posure by the taking of some suitable nutriment, and fever, and 
even delirium relieved by the judicious change of clothes and 
the admission of pure air into a room, know how much right 
attention to bodily wants can alleviate even mental disquietude. 
I have seen a child seized with convulsion because its head 
had been covered and greatly heated while it slept, and I have 
known convulsion also occur in a child from eating the almonds 
beneath coats of sugar. 
Few realize the importance of rightly feeding the sick ; the 
medicine all believe in. Some knowledge of the nature of 
foods and their relation to the living organism, should be pos- 
sessed by every nurse and every woman. As an illustration, a 
distinguished physician, of this city, in speaking of the fact that 
sick people, especially children, often die from want of nutri- 
ment, and no one suspects the cause, related this case : A lady 
lately made a long sea voyage with a child that she did not 
nurse, and gave it, on the voyage, only sweetened farina and 
farina water for food. When it arrived here, sick, emaciated, 
old-looking, and apparently dying, the doctor was called in. 
He was sagacious enough to perceive that the child was starv- 
ing, and that milk was the medicine it needed. It wms soon 
well, but that mother evidently was ignorant of the important 10 
fact that the sugars and starches (farina is pure starch) do not 
contain the materials that will nourish all parts of the body, 
and cannot of themselves long sustain life ; and this ignorance 
came near leaving her childless. 
A lady lately related to me the case of her friend whose dar- 
ling little girl was very ill, and grew weaker and weaker, until 
it was given up to die ; a few weeks ago the lady met the 
mother with this same little girl, plump and rosy, and on inquir- 
ing what miracle had so renewed that young life, was told that it 
was rawjjysters; that the child had at first sucked a raw oyster 
and seemed eager for more; that it would awake in the night 
and cry for oysters, and still it grew stronger and stronger, as 
the mother, who read the wisdom of nature in the want of the 
child, fed it as it desired. It is by no means certain, however, 
that some other mother, hearing of this marvelous oyster cure, 
may not cram oysters down the revolting stomach of some little 
victim, to its serious injury; for thus people do. 
A medical’friend lately related his own experience in his youth 
in a similar case. He had been sick a long time, his physician came 
day after day, and still he grew no better. The dear aunt with 
whom he lived forbade this article of food and the other, and 
only his prescribed, hateful, sick diet was permitted. But one 
day when the table was set for the family, and the aunt was ab- 
sent, he succeeded in obtaining from it a large plate of chipped 
beef, and ate and ate till it was finished. The aunt came in and 
was alarmed at the terrible thing that had happened. She sent 
post haste for the Doctor, but he was away and no other was 
within reach ; she moaned and clasped her hands and waited in 
terror for the fatal effects of that beef! The morning came and 
the boy had only slept; the midday brought the Doctor; he 
heard the aunt’s story, but thought it too late to give the emetic 
that ought to have been administered the night before. lie 
looked at the patient’s tongue, it was better, the expected chill 
had not recurred, the boy was lively, and in short, had no oc- 
casion further for the Doctor. I have a friend who when a 
yo.ung girl and very ill, cried for ham until her physician at last 
said “give it to her, she can’t live anyhow.” She did live, 
however, and to this day stoutly maintains that she was cured 
by that ham ! So again, one man told me that his conva- 11 
lescence from a terrible illness dated from the hour that he 
obtained a jar of pickles and consumed them, to the horror 
and alarm of his friends ; and another described the healing that 
came from long, deep, but interdicted draughts of cold water, 
“ stolen waters” so sweet and healing that their remembrance 
was a life long refreshment. 
But you will say are not the sick often injured by over-eating ? 
Do they not sometimes desire things entirely unsuitable, and is 
not great caution requisite ? Yes, this is true also. The 
weakened digestive powers often are greatly disturbed by arti- 
cles that might be taken with perfect impunity in health, some 
persons are not so perfect in their instincts as others, and the 
nurse and the invalid learn by observation and by suffering that 
some things are not to be taken at all and others in small 
quantities ; but these exceptions do not disprove the interesting 
and important truth that generally the persistent craving of the 
sick is the pointing of nature as to the article of food needed 
and the amount required, and that that which is disgusting is 
injurious. 
I saw a family alarmed lately on account of the illness of a 
member, whose politeness had caused her distressing symptoms. 
She had been in a disordered and rather depressed condition 
bodily, but had ventured out to dine, and veal was the meat of 
the occasion. She felt sick; nature, ever faithful, in the shape 
of a recoiling stomach hinted that veal was not the thing for 
her just then, but her entertainer would feel sorry and disap- 
pointed, so determinedly she forced it down, and this was the 
secret of her illness ! She was almost as polite as an urbane 
man I know, who, at the expense of subsequent illness, ate an 
addled egg, lest his kind hostess should suspect that her break- 
fast was not altogether good. Whether this excessive polite- 
ness should not “be more honored in the breach than the 
observance,” is here an irrelevant question. 
But I have known patients greatly in need of food, and who 
could have taken it if it had been nicely prepared, turn away 
unable to eat, solely because the nurse did not know liow to 
make it palatable and attractive. Great chunks of sour or 
badly baked bread, beef tea with a curious taste from the vessel 
in which it was prepared, milk warm and sour, tea cold and 12 
smoked, butter soft and stale, meat tough and burned, soup salt 
as brine, have often lost a needed meal for a sinking sufferer, 
while the cook, with the usual pride of women in regard to their 
own culinary powers, never believed it was any defect of hers, 
but only the notion of the invalid, that the meal was not good, 
and was not eaten ! 
It is often exceedingly important to the very weak who can 
take but little nutriment, to have that little often, and just when 
they want it. I have known invalids sustain great injury and 
suffering, when exhausted for want of food, they have had to 
wait and wait, feeling as if every minute was an hour, while 
some well fed nurse delayed its coming. 
“ You ought to have my nurse,” said a lady. It makes me 
hungry now to think of the meals she brought me upon that 
little waiter when I was sick. Such brown thin toast, such 
good broiled beef, such fragrant tea, and everything looking so 
exquisitely nice! If at anytime I didn’t think of anything 
I wanted, nor ask for food, she did not annoy me with ques- 
tions, but brought some little delicacy at the proper time, and 
somehow, when it came I could take it. 
The stories of some of the ladies who go week after week on 
errands of mercy to our military hospitals are instructive, and 
some of them very touching. 
One lady told me of several young men in one hospital, sick, 
and apparently unable to rally from their diseases. They 
couldn’t eat; they couldn’t bear the hospital fare, it disgusted 
them, and they seemed doomed to sink. One of them, however, 
asked for stewed chicken ; others begged-the ladies to try to do 
something for one young man whose only hope was to get well 
enough to be taken to his home in Ohio to die. The ladies 
hastened back to the city, they bought and stewed chickens, and 
with these and sweet home-made bread, and butter, returned to 
the hospital. By consent of the physician in charge, they 
heated the chicken, spread the nice bread and butter, and bore 
them round to the proper recipients. “ Oh, this is like my 
mother’s stewed chicken,” said one ; “this tastes like the bread 
and butter my wife used to prepare,” said another. Some, at 
first, thought they did not want any food, they had no appetite ; 
but they were induced to taste, this stimulated and gave a little 13 
tone to tlieir stomachs, and they desired more;—they could 
eat. Time after time, the ladies repeated their visits and their 
sustaining gifts, and several of those whose cases were con- 
sidered hopeless recovered. One of these, happy in renewed 
health, said to the ladies, “ I owe my life to your stewed chicken. 
My appetite returned, and I began from that time to recover.” 
People may say that there is no use or propriety in ladies 
frequenting these Hospitals, and that government provisions 
are sufficient; but there is many a generous life preserved by 
the insight and enlightened ministrations of these noble women ; 
and in far away homes, by eastern hills and western streams 
and prairies, shall mothers and sisters cover with blessings the 
names of those whose true womanly hearts and hands soothed, 
perchance saved, the beloved of their hearts. 
Knowledge, the assurance that one knows what to do, always 
gives presence of mind, and presence of mind is important in a 
sick room, and indeed in every home. Who has not known 
cases of consternation in families when some one has fainted, or 
been burned, or cut, and none was present who knew how to 
revive the sufferer, or stop the streaming blood, or promptly 
make the soothing and saving application to the burn ? and yet 
efficiency of this kind would doubtless save many a life, and be 
a most fitting and desirable accomplishment in every woman. 
And have we not many of us known of instances in which when 
doctors gave up the case as hopeless and death seemed near, some 
wise friend, some wife, or mother, who watched with “the patience, 
of hope ” and the faith of love ; who when the body was cooling 
placed the warm bottles or bricks to the feet, and poured in the 
stimulant Or nutriment just at the right moment; who, stilled 
all harsh sounds, and soothed even delirium with tenderest tones 
and words, has been rewarded by seeing health return, and by 
being ever after revered by the sufferer as the restorer of his 
life? 
The good nurse is an artist. Oh, the pillowy soothing soft- 
ness of her touch, the neatness of her simple unrustling dress, 
the music of her assured yet gentle voice and tread, the sense 
of security and rest inspired by her kindly hopeful face, the 
promptness of her attention to every want, the repose that like 
an atmosphere encircles her, the evidence of heavenly goodness 14 
and love that she diffuses ! “ May you die among your kin- 
dred,” was an Eastern benediction ; “ May such a nurse bless 
your sickness,” is one not less comprehensive. 
If there is one purpose of a personal kind for which it is 
especially desirable and proper to lay up means, it is to be well 
nursed in sickness; yet in the present state of society, this 
is often absolutely impossible, even to the wealthy, because of 
the scarcity of competent nurses. Families, worn down with 
the long and extreme illness of a member require relief, and a 
stranger whose feelings will be less intensely taxed, and who can 
therefore better endure the labor, for a time, is desirable. But, 
alas, how often it is found impossible, “ for love or money,” to 
obtain one capable of taking the burden from the exhausted sister, 
or mother, or daughter, and how often in consequence these lie 
down themselves upon a sick bed to die prematurely, or struggle 
through weary years with a broken constitution. Appeal to 
those who have made the trial, and you will find that very 
seldom have they been able to hire those who, by nature, 
or knowledge and training, were competent for their duties. 
Ignorant, unscrupulous, inattentive, how often they injure and 
disturb the patient. A physician told me that one of his 
patients had died, because the nurse, contrary to order, had at 
a critical period, washed her with cold water. I have known 
of one at least who quieted a fretful child by stealth, with lauda- 
num ; and of very many who drained and exhausted the sick 
by their incessant talking! One lady said, that when to escape 
this distressing garrulity, she closed her eyes in weariness, the 
nurse exclaimed aloud, “ Why, she is going to sleep while I am 
talking to her.” A few only, of those sensible and “quiet and 
loving women,” whose presence every where is a blessing, have 
qualified themselves for nursing as a business, and have fol- 
lowed it. Heaven bless that few 1 What a sense of relief have 
I seen pervade a family when such an one has been procured; 
what a treasure seemed found ! 
A distinguished citizen of Pennsylvania wrote to me not a 
year since, saying that he was anxious to engage a number of 
regular competent nurses of specified age and acquirements to 
repair to a Military Hospital in Washington, and hoped I 
would be able to refer him to such. I could only reply, that I 15 
could not do it; that the number of such as he desired, had 
been entirely inadequate to the wants of the community in 
time of peace, and that the need of such was one of those great 
needs that the future must supply. Evidently he, in common 
with most others, was totally unaware of the fact that such 
could not be had for the asking ! 
Ladies, those who were most active and interested in found- 
ing and starting the Woman’s Hospital of Philadelphia, aware 
of this condition of things, knowing the’injury and suffering 
sustained for want of a greater number of high-toned and well 
trained nurses, as well as the need among women generally' of 
more knowledge in regard to the right manner of taking care of 
the sick, made the training of an enlightened and refined class 
of nurses one of the objects embodied in the charter of that 
institution. They believe that this is a demand of our civiliza- 
tion, needed uot only to bear comfort to the stricken with 
disease and relieve the near connections, but to afford fitting 
and congenial employment to many women whose abilities 
may thus be made a blessing to society. With this view, it is 
proposed that my friend, Mrs. Cleveland, should give a short 
course of instruction to ladies generally, as well as to those 
who may incline to make the care of the sick a business, upon 
the practical art of nursing. 
Her knowledge and power of imparting instruction with clear- 
ness will enable her to initiate those who may attend, into an un- 
derstanding of the common indications of the pulse, the tongue, 
the skin, into the mode of arranging the bed and turning the 
very weak, the manner of preparing certain articles of food, and 
of performing those many indispensable acts which sickness 
necessitates. 
As this is an effort intended for a most benevolent purpose, 
we trust the ladies of this community will become assistants in 
the work, by seeking out suitable women and encouraging them 
to qualify themselves for nursing as a business, and by infusing 
among ladies generally a due appreciation of the importance of 
familiarity with those practical details which will make them 
everywhere so invaluable in sickness and sorrow.