Now a nurse means any person in charge of the personal health of
another. And, in the preceding notes, the term _nurse_ is used
indiscriminately for amateur and professional nurses. For, besides
nurses of the sick and nurses of children, the numbers of whom are here
given, there are friends or relations who take temporary charge of a
sick person, there are mothers of families. It appears as if these
unprofessional nurses were just as much in want of knowledge of the laws
of health as professional ones.
Then there are the school-mistresses of all national and other schools
throughout the kingdom. How many of children's epidemics originate in
these! Then the proportion of girls in these schools, who become mothers
or members among the 64,600 nurses recorded above, or schoolmistresses
in their turn. If the laws of health, as far as regards fresh air,
cleanliness, light, &c., were taught to these, would this not prevent
some children being killed, some evil being perpetuated? On women we
must depend, first and last, for personal and household hygiene--for
preventing the race from degenerating in as far as these things are
concerned.
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