Nursing from 1800-1830

I am going to get real here. This week was a little difficult. Not because there was a lack of information really but because there was a lack of information about anything or anyone other than Florence Nightingale. The woman was remarkable but I am positive, and have since had my suspicions confirmed, that there was more going on in medical and nursing history at that time rather than Florence Nightingale. This was a little bit of a dead time. Looking back there wasn't a ton going on yet. It was kind of the beginning of things happening and there were necessary lulls during this time that let the world of medicine expand exponentially. As far as nursing goes in the UK and in Europe, nurses were still largely nuns. This remained true into the 1900's. Nursing was not considered a delicate profession. Here in the United states though, the term nurse began to become synonymous with the word midwife. There wasn't really another place for women in medicine during this time period. After all how could there be when every month women would experience a lack of blood flow to the brain causing a decrease in brain function (this was a major belief held by male physicians during this time period). It seems during this time it was more acceptable for slaves to be nurses than it was for a white woman to enter the medical field and in fact there were many fantastic nurses that came from slave backgrounds. One example where slaves were used as nurses is during the yellow fever outbreaks. African slaves tended to have immunity so they were charged with aiding the sick. It is amazing that these people were humble and good enough to put aside what had happened to them and nurse anyway. In their shoes I do not think I could have the strength of character to do the same.