Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/126

110 no A Short History of Nursing these were compelled to go beyond and seek ampler spheres in the wide world. Not a few ex- deaconesses led a later movement in Germany for a free nursing association. From the nursing standpoint the deaconesses, like the Sisters of Charity, brought about a great reformation in hospital service and institutional work generally. They treated patients with loving kindness, as individuals, not only as cases. They obeyed scrupulously the directions of physicians, and brought an atmosphere of peace and sweet- ness into the plainest and dullest wards. The weak point of the system was its unpaid labour. The greater the number of nurses needed, the less could the Motherhouse support them all in old age and illness, especially as overwork caused many breakages in health. To prevent question- ings and dissatisfaction, the pastors who, subse- quently to the Fliedners, founded deaconess houses, became too repressive and narrow in bind- ing down their pupils to a complete negation of intellectual life and mental initiative. They came to laud self-abnegation, humility, and submissive- ness to an absurd degree, and so brought about a reaction which gradually led to institutions, similar in form, but of a more liberal character being founded.