Excerpt from Report of the Building Committee: Together With an Address Delivered on the Occasion of the Inauguration of the New Building, on the 16th March, 1877 by William H. Van Buren, A. M., M. D In connection with the subject of nursing, I will take leave to remark that, in a recent visit to the English hospitals, I observed that the head nurse, or sister, in charge of each ward, always accompanied the chief surgeon at his visit, and manifested, in her watchful desire to hear his remarks and suggestions, a personal interest in the welfare and progress of each individual under her care - which seemed to me a great improve ment upon old usages. I got no evidence of clashing, in their respective jurisdiction, between the nurses and professional attendants - a difficulty avoided, apparently, by securing high personal qualities on both sides. The nurse seemed to hold the attitude of a female relative in charge of a patient in private life to the attending physician, with the great advant age of having been thoroughly trained to her proper work. This most natural and desirable adjustment of function, which is effecting so much good, is due in a great degree to the efforts and example of that noble Englishwoman, Florence Nightingale, and her self-sacrificing associates. I owe to the courtesy of Sir James Paget, President of the Royal College of Surgeons, an expression of Opinion as to the merits of Lister's mode of dressing wounds, which was, in general terms, favorable but, he added, I am disposed to attribute the decrease in mortality after sur gical operations, in the London hospitals during the last ten years, mainly to the improvement in the nursing of our patients. This statement, as far as it asserts the great advantages of nursing by trained women, I am confident expresses the judgment of a majority of English hospital surgeons. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.