Historical Revolution of Nursing:: Period of Intuitive Nursing/Medieval Period/Primitive Era

HISTORICAL REVOLUTION OF NURSING:
Period of Intuitive Nursing/Medieval Period/Primitive Era

- In ancient civilization, nursing was noted to be as old as time. It basically started from
INSTINCT. It is in human nature to help and care for the sick.
- It was practiced since prehistoric times among primitive tribes and lasted until the Christian
Era.
● In primitive or ancient times, caring for others was untaught and instinctive.
● Nursing started as an intuitive way of caring for sick or injured members of the family.
● It was performed out of compassion for others, out of the wish to help others.
● A function that belonged to women.
● Viewed as a natural nurturing job for women. (because women’s roles in the past
traditionally were to run the household, taking good care of the children, the sick and
the aged.)
● No caregiving training is evident. (It was all based on experience and observations)
Believes and Practices of Prehistoric Man:

● Primitive men believed that illness was caused by the invasion of the victim’s body of
evil spirits through the use of balck magic or voodoo.
● They believed that the medicine man, Shaman or witch doctor had the power to heal
by using white magic, hypnosis, charms, dances, incantation, purgatives, massage,
fire, water and herbs as a means of driving illness from the victim.
● They also practice “TREPHINING” or drilling a hole in the skull with a rock or stone
without anesthesia as a last resort to drive evil spirits from the body.
Contributions to Medicine and Nursing:

Egyptian Civilizations:
● Hammurabi - first king of Babylonian Empire.
○ Code of Hammurabi - (one of the first written codes of law recorded in history)
○ This code provided laws that included medical practice and recommended
specific doctors for each disease and gave each patient the right to choose
between the use of charms, medications or surgical procedures.
○ https://extinctdoctorgood.com/2017/12/23/hammurabis-medical-regulation-
code-1750-bc-noble-profession-has-always-been-regulated-cruelly/
Egypts
● Introduce the art of embalming/preserving which enhances their knowledge of human
anatomy.
● During these times, they had developed the ability to make observations and left a
record of 250 recognized diseases.
● There was no mention of nurses, and hospitals. Slaves and patient’s families are the
one who nurses the sick.
Israel
● Moses - “Father of Sanitation”
Period of Apprentice Nursing “The Training Period”

- The period of on the job training. In this period nursing care was performed without any
formal education and by people who were directed by more experienced nurses.
● Religious orders of the Christian church were responsible for the development of this
kind of nursing.
● Care was done by crusaders, prisoners and religious orders.
● In this early Christian Era, women began nursing as an expression of Christianity.
● Christianity had a large influence upon nursing, and it was during this time that
nurses first formed themselves into organized groups. Educated and wealthy women
dedicated themselves to caring for the sick and poverty stricken.
Important Personages who dedicated themselves.

● St. Clare - gave nursing care to the sick and the afflicted
- Established her own religious order.
- Inspired by St. Francis and joined him
● St. Elizabeth of Hungary - patroness of nurses.
- Daughter of the Hungarian King
- She used her wealth to make the lives of the poor happy and useful
- She built hospitals for the sick and the needy.
- She even fed the sick with her own hands and made their beds
- She provided for orphans and fed 300 to 900 people daily at her gate.
● St. Catherine of Siena - the first lady with lamp
- She was a hospital nurse, prophetess, researcher and a former society in the
church.
- She pledged her life to service at the age of seven and was referred to as a
little saint.
The Renaissance period, however, was considered the “dark side of nursing”.
Dark period of Nursing
● This extends from the 17th century to the 19th century from the period of reformation
until the US Civil War.
● During this period nursing went down to the lowest level.
- Nursing became the work of the least desirable of women.
- Hundreds of hospitals closed.
- There were no provision for the sick, no one cared for the sick
- Wayward women of low status would become nurses instead of going to jail
or facing other punishments. These women were usually poor, had no family
and also no hope for marriage.
● During this period, Pastor Theodore Fliedner and Frederika Fliedner, established the
1st training school for nurses, The Kaiserswerth Institute for Deaconesses in
Germany. They recognized the role of women in taking care of the sick.
● And one of the students of this training school is Florence Nightingale, where she
received her 3 month course of studying in nursing.
Because no formal education in the care of the sick was available, the earliest nurses
learned the art through oral traditions passed through the generations. Many times
knowledge was simply gained through the process of trial and error. By the sixteenth
century, nurses were known as people who wait upon or tend to the sick.
It was not until the nineteenth century that the definition of nursing was broadened to include
those trained to tend to the sick and carry out duties under the direction of a physician.
Holder states that most people associate the true beginning of nursing with Florence
Nightingale in the 19th century.
Period of Educated Nursing

The development of nursing during this period was strongly influenced by:
○ Trends resulting from wars - Crimean, civil war
○ An arousal of social consciousness
○ Emancipation of women - (freeing someone from slavery)
○ Increased educational opportunities for women.
● Florence Nightingale was asked by Sir Sidney Herbert of the British War Department
to recruit female nurses to provide care for the sick and injured in the Crimean War
● This period began on June 15, 1860 when the Florence Nightingale School of
Nursing opened at St. Thomas Hospital in London.
● In 1860, The Nightingale Training School of Nurses opened at St. Thomas Hospital in
London.
○ The school served as a model for other training schools. Its graduates
traveled to other countries to manage hospitals and institute nurse-training
programs.
○ Nightingale's focus vision of the nursing Nightingale system was more on
developing the profession within hospitals. Nurses should be taught in
hospitals associated with medical schools and that the curriculum should
include both theory and practice.
○ It was the 1st school of nursing that provided both theory-based knowledge
and clinical skill building.
● Nursing evolved as an art and science
● Formal nursing education and nursing service begun
Florence Nightingale:
● “Mother of Modern Nursing”, “Founder of Modern Nursing”
● Born May 12 1800 in Florence, Italy
● At age of 31, she entered the Deaconesses School in spite of her family’s resistance
to her ambition. She became a nurse over the objections of society and her family
because of her love to serve and care for the people in need.
● Known as the “Lady with the Lamp” because of her habit of making rounds at night to
check on the injured and sickened soldiers during the Crimean war.
● Nightingale's school was the first of its kind to provide both theory-based knowledge
as well as clinical skill building.
● She upgraded the practice of nursing and made nursing an honorable profession for
gentlewomen.
Period of Contemporary Nursing/20th Century

Historical Revolution of Nursing:: Period of Intuitive Nursing/Medieval Period/Primitive Era

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HISTORICAL REVOLUTION OF NURSING:

Period of Intuitive Nursing/Medieval Period/Primitive Era

Believes and Practices of Prehistoric Man:

Contributions to Medicine and Nursing:

Period of Apprentice Nursing “The Training Period”

Important Personages who dedicated themselves.

Period of Educated Nursing

Period of Contemporary Nursing/20th Century

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