Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/207

191 Extensions of Nursing Field 191 classes of the sick, as lepers, and sometimes the insane. Later the "fever hospital" became the forerunner of modern institutions for contagious diseases. So far has classification gone now that we have besides the general hospital, for acute, non-infectious cases, special hospitals for each kind of contagious and infectious disease; for women; for children ; for babies; for men ; for chronic cases; for eye, ear, nose, and throat service; for skin and cancer patients; for obstetrical cases; for nervous and mental troubles; for orthopaedics; for tuber- culosis, — indeed the list might be even further extended. There are also numerous related institutions, — for the aged; for foundlings; orphans; incurables; the dependent poor; colonies of various types, as for wayward girls, defectives, epileptics, etc. ; con- valescent homes; day nurseries, and preventoria. There are also institutions such as boarding school and college dormitories where the health of large numbers is cared for. In all of these the help of the nurse is sought, and for much of this work she requires a special preparation added to her general course. Institutions of this kind remained longest closed to the nurse, though England finally developed model hospitals in connection with her workhouses.