Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/135

119 Florence Nightingale 119 for a couple of weeks, and then returned for a three months' stay. Before this, in her travels, she had visited and thoroughly inspected hospitals and nursing systems in many continental countries as well as at home. In 1852 she visited Ireland and inspected the Dublin hospitals. In 1853 she had made an arrangement to serve an apprenticeship with the Sisters of Charity in Paris, but this plan was frustrated by illness, and she was able to spend only one month with them in studying their or- ganization and discipline. Her published analyses and comparisons of nursing systems in France, Austria, Italy, and Germany date from this period. After her brief stay with the Sisters of Charity, Miss Nightingale took charge of a private nursing home of a semi-charitable character in _. , First London, and had an opportunity to executive prove her unusual executive ability; but it did not satisfy her, for her desire was to train nurses and work in a wider field. About that time, too, she had intensive experience in nursing cholera in the Middlesex hospital, where she volun- teered her services during an epidemic. She was then known far and wide for her nursing aspirations and also for her gifts of organization and command. As we consider Miss Nightingale's preparation