Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/198

182 1 82 A Short History of Nursing its lingering survival in some modern hospitals, where its total incongruity with the needs of self- supporting workers is plainly manifest. The modern trained private-duty nurse is a hospital product and Florence Nightingale's handi- work, for though the Nightingale school itself did not train for private duty, its nursing missioners did, and no one else has ever so perfectly defined the qualities of the private nurse as Miss Nightin- gale in her Notes on Nursing. To the private duty nurse is given the opportunity of being, if she will, the perfect, and the ideal nurse, both in her handi- work, and in her personal influence. Yet there are certain trials to character in private duty — the luxury of many patients' homes, the difficulty of keeping in touch with professional and social pro- gress, the ease of falling into conservative, even narrow lines of thought. The economic aspect of private duty makes it also a difficult one from a public standpoint. The skilled and highly trained nurse is too costly for the average family, yet the unskilled or partly trained attendant who begins by undercutting, quickly raises her fees to the pre- vailing standard, and, in times of stress, has been clearly shown to be very mercenary — more so than the professional, who has a fuller sense of esprit de corps. Vainly have medical men and philanthro-