Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/27

Rh the medical man who assumed a monopoly of theoretical knowledge and intellectual command, but dealt in no practical or handwork with the sick;—all of this was delegated to his assistants, who came to form submedical castes, and corresponded to medical students of a later time. Such practitioners often shared the work of nursing, performed operations, and gave massage and other treatment as ordered, but yet continued to leave the general care and work in the sick room (or hut) to the nurse.

The influence of medical knowledge on nursing progress has been great, but not one-sided, for here, too, there has been a reciprocal influence. As nursing has grown more efficient, the results made possible for medical science have extended their field far beyond what medical chiefs themselves had ever imagined. On analysis it would seem that nursing and medicine are still essentially one. The knowledge of the physician must be in part possessed by the nurse. Hers is not a different knowledge, though it is applied with definite limitations. The physician is often a model nurse. But for the attainment of the highest efficiency the whole field of the care of the sick has come to be divided into various departments, one of which is the caretaking or nursing, and to this has now