Notes on Nursing: What Nursing Is and Is Not — Florence Nightingale (1859)

Florence Nightingale's Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not (1859), read from the opening chapters. In her own words, Nightingale draws a firm line between medicine and nursing and lays out the theory beneath the household advice: that the nurse's task is to put the patient in the best condition for nature to act. This is a Reading from The Rooted Commons — original texts, narrated slowly and faithfully. The passage is public domain, from Project Gutenberg (#12439); spelling and formatting are lightly modernized, the words are Nightingale's own. The Rooted Commons — where ideas began and conversations continue. Follow the channel for more readings from the sources behind the ideas we live by.