History of nursing

The word "nurse" originally came from the Latin word "nutrire", meaning to suckle, referring to a wet-nurse; only in the late 16th century did it attain its modern meaning of a person who cares for the infirm.

From the earliest times most cultures produced a stream of nurses dedicated to service on religious principles. Both Christendom and the Muslim World generated a stream of dedicated nurses from their earliest days. In Europe before the foundation of modern nursing, Catholic nuns and the military often provided nursing-like services. It took until the 20th century for nursing to become a secular profession.

The early history of nurses suffers from a lack of source material, but nursing in general has long been an extension of the wet-nurse function of women.

Buddhist Indian ruler (268 B.C.E. to 232 B.C.E.) Ashoka erected a series of pillars, which included an edict ordering hospitals to be built along the routes of travelers, and that they be "well provided with instruments and medicine, consisting of mineral and vegetable drugs, with roots and fruits"; "Whenever there is no provision of drugs, medical roots, and herbs, they are to be supplied, and skilful physicians appointed at the expense of the state to administer them." The system of public hospitals continued until the fall of Buddhism in India ca. 750 C.E.

About 100 B.C.E. the Charaka Samhita was written in India, stating that good medical practice requires a patient, physician, nurse, and medicines, with the nurse required to be knowledgeable, skilled at preparing formulations and dosage, sympathetic towards everyone, and clean.

The first known Christian nurse, Phoebe, is mentioned in Romans 16:1. During the early years of the Christian Church (ca. 50 C.E.), St. Paul sent a deaconess named Phoebe to Rome as the first visiting nurse.

From its earliest days, following the edicts of Jesus, Christianity encouraged its devotees to tend the sick. Priests were often also physicians. According to the historian Geoffrey Blainey, while pagan religions seldom offered help to the infirm, the early Christians were willing to nurse the sick and take food to them, notably during the smallpox epidemic of AD 165-180 and the measles outbreak of around AD 250; "In nursing the sick and dying, regardless of religion, the Christians won friends and sympathisers".

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