Chapter XXXIX: Part IV: Hospitals and Nursing

(1858-1861)

The everyday management of a large ward, let alone of a hospital,
the knowing what are the laws of life and death for men, and what
the laws of health for wards (and wards are healthy or unhealthy
mainly according to the knowledge or ignorance of the nurse), are
not these matters of sufficient importance and difficulty to
require learning by experience and careful inquiry, just as much as
any other art?--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE: _Notes on Nursing_.