Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/378

362 362 A Short History of Nursing leagues. In the whole medical family, there is a rather marked tendency to face the facts of life frankly, to abhor sentimentalism and prudery, and to view human frailties with a broad and tolerant spirit. Medicine has been influenced more than nursing by the ideals and spirit of modern science. The true scientist is known by his patient and pains- taking search for truth, by his distrust of any theory or tradition which cannot be proven by investigation and the test of reason, and by his keenness to get to the bottom of things and to try things out for himself. He must be scrupulously exact and honest in his statements and in every detail of his work — otherwise he is not trusted or respected as a man of science. The scientific spirit is radically opposed to superstition and to dogma- tism in any form. It is open-minded and singu- larly humble because it knows that our conception of truth is constantly changing, and what is con- sidered sure today may be disproven tomorrow. It is not content to stand still, but is always going ahead adding to the sum total of human knowledge. There is no question that nurses, who are them- selves engaged in a form of scientific work and who often are expected to assist in various kinds of scientific research, should cultivate more the sci-