Assignment: NUR 2058 Legacy of Nursing’s History

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Select a nurse that historically contributed to the advancement of the profession. Write a 2-3 page paper that responds to the following questions. Identify the nurse and his/her background and complete the following:

Provide a brief description of the major social issues occurring at the time this nurse lived

Describe two contributions made to nursing

Discuss how these two unique contributions influenced nursing as we know it today

Minimum length 2-3 pages not including cover or referencing. APA formatting with referencing and in text citation.

You may use your textbook, readings and the following for background information.

ANA Hall of Fame

American Association for the History of Nursing

Museum of Nursing History – Slide Show Gallery

Strout, K. (2012). Wellness promotion and the Institute of Medicine’s future of nursing report: Are nurses ready? Holistic Nursing Practice 26(3), 129-136.

This assignments must have accurate spelling and grammar and use APA Editorial Format for sources and reference.

The word “nurse” originally came from the Latin word “nutrire”, meaning to suckle, referring to a wet-nurse; only in the late 16th century did it attain its modern meaning of a person who cares for the infirm.[1]

From the earliest times most cultures produced a stream of nurses dedicated to service on religious principles. Both Christendom and the Muslim World generated a stream of dedicated nurses from their earliest days. In Europe before the foundation of modern nursing, Catholic nuns and the military often provided nursing-like services.[2] It took until the 19th century for nursing to become a secular profession.

Ancient history
The early history of nurses suffers from a lack of source material, but nursing in general has long been an extension of the wet-nurse function of women.[3][4]

Buddhist Indian ruler (268 BC to 232 BC) Ashoka erected a series of pillars, which included an edict ordering hospitals to be built along the routes of travelers, and that they be “well provided with instruments and medicine, consisting of mineral and vegetable drugs, with roots and fruits”; “Whenever there is no provision of drugs, medical roots, and herbs, they are to be supplied, and skilful physicians appointed at the expense of the state to administer them.” The system of public hospitals continued until the fall of Buddhism in India ca. AD 750.

About 100 BC the Charaka Samhita was written in India, stating that good medical practice requires a patient, physician, nurse, and medicines, with the nurse required to be knowledgeable, skilled at preparing formulations and dosage, sympathetic towards everyone, and clean.

The first known Christian nurse, Phoebe, is mentioned in Romans 16:1. During the early years of the Christian Church (ca. AD 50), St. Paul sent a deaconess named Phoebe to Rome as the first visiting nurse.[5]

From its earliest days, following the edicts of Jesus, Christianity encouraged its devotees to tend the sick. Priests were often also physicians. According to the historian Geoffrey Blainey, while pagan religions seldom offered help to the infirm, the early Christians were willing to nurse the sick and take food to them, notably during the smallpox epidemic of AD 165-180 and the measles outbreak of around AD 250; “In nursing the sick and dying, regardless of religion, the Christians won friends and sympathisers”.[6]

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Following the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, leading to an expansion of the provision of care. Among the earliest were those built ca. 370 by St. Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), by Saint Fabiola in Rome ca. 390, and by the physician-priest Saint Sampson (d. 530) in Constantinople, Called the Basiliad, St. Basil’s hospital resembled a city, and included housing for doctors and nurses and separate buildings for various classes of patients.[7] There was a separate section for lepers.[8] Eventually construction of a hospital in every cathedral town was begun.

Christian emphasis on practical charity gave rise to the development of systematic nursing and hospitals after the end of the persecution of the early church.[9] Ancient church leaders like St. Benedict of Nursia (480-547) emphasized medicine as an aid to the provision of hospitality.[10] 12th century Roman Catholic orders like the Dominicans and Carmelites have long lived in religious communities that work for the care of the sick.[11]

Some hospitals maintained libraries and training programs, and doctors compiled their medical and pharmacological studies in manuscripts. Thus in-patient medical care in the sense of what we today consider a hospital, was an invention driven by Christian mercy and Byzantine innovation.[12] Byzantine hospital staff included the Chief Physician (archiatroi), professional nurses (hypourgoi) and orderlies (hyperetai). By the twelfth century, Constantinople had two well-organized hospitals, staffed by doctors who were both male and female. Facilities included systematic treatment procedures and specialized wards for various diseases.[13]

In the early 7th century, Rufaidah bint Sa’ad (also known as Rufaida Al-Aslamia) became what is now described as the first Muslim nurse. A contemporary of Muhammad, she hailed from the Bani Aslam tribe in Medina and learned her medical skills from her father, a traditional healer. After she had led a group of women to treat injured fighters on the battlefield, Muhammad gave her permission to set up a tent near the Medina mosque to provide treatment and care for the ill and the needy.