Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/213

197 Extensions of Nursing Field 197 also be fairly held that the settlement example of freedom to initiate, greatly strengthened the efforts of clear-sighted nurses in visiting nursing associations generally, to enlarge and broaden their field. "Public health nursing" was Miss Wald's phrase in expressing her aims for community service. Public health work is the most significant evolu- tion of modern nursing, for it is in line with pre- ventive medicine and sanitary science. Public health and will share in the attainment of a nursing better social order. It is in this evolution that we find the most striking tribute to Florence Nightin- gale's prophetic vision, for it was public health nursing that she urged upon a public, so far behind her that few, in her day, understood what she meant, and her favourite phrase, "Health Nurs- ing" sounded to many like a contradiction in terms. Public health nursing is, briefly, all that nurses can do along lines of prevention rather than pallia- tion (though the last must not be left undone) on some large and comprehensive plan for uplifting the general health level. Public health nursing work calls for the ability to teach, in a popular, simple and effective way, as well as to nurse. It may be carried on by voluntary groups or organi- zations, or by agencies of the government. Often, having begun under private initiative, public