Woman’s Mission and Professional Knowledge: Nightingale Nursing in Colonial Australia and Canada

Type of resource
Authors/collaborators
Title
Woman’s Mission and Professional Knowledge: Nightingale Nursing in Colonial Australia and Canada
Abstract
The British-based Nightingale Fund sent only two teams of Nightingale-trained nurses to the colonies. One team was sent to the Sydney Infirmary, Australia, in 1868, and the other team, under the Sherbrooke-born Lady Superintendent Maria Machin (1843-1905), was sent to the Montreal General Hospital in 1875. The authors examine the disputes that arose that led, in both cases, to the Nightingale Fund Council withdrawing its support to both teams within three years of their arrival. The authors focus on how the concept of woman's mission undermined the equally important concept of nurses’ professional training in these medical colonial adventures. When Maria Machin left the Montreal General in 1878, the hospital reverted to the old untrained nursing system, and it was not until 1890 that a training school was introduced.
Publication
Social History of Medicine
Volume
Vol. 17
Issue
no. 2
Pages
157-174
Date
August 2004
Language
en
Citation
Godden, Judith, and Carol Helmstadter. “Woman’s Mission and Professional Knowledge: Nightingale Nursing in Colonial Australia and Canada.” Social History of Medicine Vol. 17, no. 2 (August 2004): 157–174.
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