Appendix

[Transcriber's Note: The tables below have been rotated through 90° for easier display.]

Table A.

Great Britain. Ages.

Nurses. Nurse Nurse

(not Domestic Servant) (Domestic Servant)

All Ages 25,466 39,139

Under 5 Years. ... ...

5— ... 508

10— ... 7,259

15— ... 10,355

20— 624 6,537

25— 817 4,174

30— 1,118 2,495

35— 1,359 1,681

40— 2,223 1,468

45— 2,748 1,206

50— 3,982 1,196

55— 3,456 833

60— 3,825 712

65— 2,542 369

70— 1,568 204

75— 746 101

80— 311 25

85 and Upwards 147 16

Table B.

Aged 20 Years of Age, and Upwards.

Nurse Nurse

(not Domestic Servant) (Domestic Servant)

Great Britain and Islands in the British Seas. 25,466 21,017

England and Wales. 23,751 18,945

Scotland. 1,543 1,922

Islands in the British Seas. 172 150

1st Division. London. 7,807 5,061

2nd Division. South Eastern. 2,878 2,514

3rd Division. South Midland. 2,286 1,252

4th Division. Eastern Counties. 2,408 959

5th Division. South Western Counties. 3,055 1,737

6th Division. West Midland Counties. 1,225 2,383

7th Division. North Midland Counties. 1,003 957

8th Division. North Western Counties. 970 2,135

9th Division. Yorkshire. 1,074 1,023

10th Division. Northern Counties. 402 410

11th Division. Monmouth and Wales. 343 614

Note as to the Number of Women employed as Nurses in Great Britain.

25,466 were returned, at the census of 1851, as nurses by profession, 39,139 nurses in domestic service, and 2,822 midwives. The numbers of different ages are shown in table A, and in table B their distribution over Great Britain.

To increase the efficiency of this class, and to make as many of them as possible the disciples of the true doctrines of health, would be a great national work.

For there the material exists, and will be used for nursing, whether the real "conclusion of the matter" be to nurse or to poison the sick. A man, who stands perhaps at the head of our medical profession, once said to me, I send a nurse into a private family to nurse the sick, but I know that it is only to do them harm.

Now a nurse means any person in charge of the personal health of another. And, in the preceding notes, the term nurse is used indiscriminately for amateur and professional nurses. For, besides nurses of the sick and nurses of children, the numbers of whom are here given, there are friends or relations who take temporary charge of a sick person, there are mothers of families. It appears as if these unprofessional nurses were just as much in want of knowledge of the laws of health as professional ones.

Then there are the school-mistresses of all national and other schools throughout the kingdom. How many of children's epidemics originate in these! Then the proportion of girls in these schools, who become mothers or members among the 64,600 nurses recorded above, or schoolmistresses in their turn. If the laws of health, as far as regards fresh air, cleanliness, light, &c., were taught to these, would this not prevent some children being killed, some evil being perpetuated? On women we must depend, first and last, for personal and household hygiene—for preventing the race from degenerating in as far as these things are concerned. Would not the true way of infusing the art of preserving its own health into the human race be to teach the female part of it in schools and hospitals, both by practical teaching and by simple experiments, in as far as these illustrate what may be called the theory of it?