0:03 [SPEAKER_00]: The year is 1910. 0:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Florence Nightingale has just passed away, leaving behind a legacy that forever changed healthcare. 0:14 [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to believe there was a time when nursing wasn't the noble and respectable profession it is today. 0:21 [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, there was a time when people didn't want to be associated with nursing and 0:30 [SPEAKER_00]: It was considered a low status occupation, but you could learn without needing a formal education. 0:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The women who did the job were usually from disadvantaged backgrounds, which further created the impression that it was not an honorable profession. 0:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back friend to hometown history, where today we're taking a step back, far back, and across the Atlantic to Europe. 1:04 [SPEAKER_00]: In this three-part series we'll explore the fascinating and at times uncomfortable history of nursing. 1:13 [SPEAKER_00]: How did one of the most respected professions in the world begin in the shadows? 1:20 [SPEAKER_00]: How did a woman with a lamp turn a secret almost shameful job into a life-saving practice? 1:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Join me, and let's learn about the history of nursing. 1:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Before the 19th century, the idea of professional nursing didn't exist. 1:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, there were caregivers, but they were usually informal. 1:47 [SPEAKER_00]: If you were sick, you were more likely to be cared for by a family member than anyone and a hospital. 1:56 [SPEAKER_00]: Hospitals themselves were places of last resort. 2:00 [SPEAKER_00]: You were there when no other treatment worked. 2:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And you were desperate. 2:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Nursing, as a role, was associated with menial tasks, cleaning, feeding, and basic care. 2:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Because these things were basically extensions of women's domestic duties, they weren't seen as requiring much skill or formal training. 2:26 [SPEAKER_00]: and because it involved intimate contact with the sick and dying, it also carried a social stigma, and women from higher status families avoided it entirely. 2:40 [SPEAKER_00]: But even before that, nursing was tied to religious institutions, like convents and monasteries, 2:49 [SPEAKER_00]: In medieval Europe, caregiving wasn't seen as a job but an act of charity, a way to fulfill religious duty. 2:59 [SPEAKER_00]: The church taught that caring for the sick was a fundamental Christian responsibility, monks and nuns took on this role, providing care not because it required skill or expertise, because it was seen as the right thing to do. 3:18 [SPEAKER_00]: It was less about profession or recognition and more about faith. 3:24 [SPEAKER_00]: But this perspective came with consequences, caregiving, while essential, wasn't valued in the same way as other professions. 3:37 [SPEAKER_00]: It was tied more to compassion and duty than to knowledge or ability. 3:43 [SPEAKER_00]: and the people providing this care were seen as humble servants, rather than skilled practitioners. 3:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Technically speaking, it's not entirely wrong for this time. 3:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Because they mostly use basic remedies in spiritual practices, 4:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Their treatments would include herbal poltuses, prayers, or blessings, methods that were more about comfort than medicinal efficacy. 4:17 [SPEAKER_00]: So this lack of formal medical knowledge only reinforced the idea that caregiving didn't require much education or training. 4:28 [SPEAKER_00]: It was work anyone could do. 4:34 [SPEAKER_00]: And more than male monks, it was female nuns who took up the duty. 4:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Nuns were expected to embody feminine virtues, like compassion and selflessness. 4:47 [SPEAKER_00]: So even with then-religious institutions, we're caregiving what's considered noble. 4:52 [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't escape gender roles. 4:56 [SPEAKER_00]: But during the late medieval and early modern periods, 5:00 [SPEAKER_00]: hospital started to emerge as secular institutions, separate from the oversight of religious orders. 5:09 [SPEAKER_00]: On the surface, this shift might seem like progress, but it brought new challenges. 5:18 [SPEAKER_00]: As a woman in the 19th century, living under a religious institution, you were kept safe and respected. 5:29 [SPEAKER_00]: In the overcrowded, chaotic hospital environment, frequented mostly by the poor, and destitute. 5:37 [SPEAKER_00]: You no longer had that protection. 5:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Nurses and secular hospitals were poorly paid, poorly trained, and poorly regarded. 5:47 [SPEAKER_00]: They were seen as part of the underclass, working jobs that others didn't want, 5:59 [SPEAKER_00]: This act was no longer tied to religious duty. 6:04 [SPEAKER_00]: It was now assumed these women were desperate for work. 6:09 [SPEAKER_00]: You essentially went from the structured, highly disciplined environment of convents to the unpredictable and unsanitary conditions of urban hospitals. 6:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Nurses who worked in these places didn't have the support, 6:27 [SPEAKER_00]: that religious caregivers once had, and it would only get worse. 6:36 [SPEAKER_00]: By the early 19th century, the nursing role began to shift slightly, but not necessarily for the better. 6:45 [SPEAKER_00]: the Industrial Revolution brought massive changes across Europe with urban areas seeing rapid population growth. 6:54 [SPEAKER_00]: In London alone, between 1801 and 1841, the population doubled, leading to severe overcrowding and inadequate housing. 7:07 [SPEAKER_00]: This urbanization led to overcrowded living conditions, poor sanitation, and increased spread of diseases, like cholera, typhoid, and tuberculosis. 7:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Hospitals and workhouses couldn't handle the influx of patients and desperately started seeking more labor. 7:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me rephrase that. 7:31 [SPEAKER_00]: They wanted readily available dirt, cheap, labor, 7:37 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, in many places, especially in Europe, nurses were recruited from the lowest rungs of society, often women with nowhere else to turn, widows, orphans, and women from brothels, but find themselves pressed into the nursing profession. 7:58 [SPEAKER_00]: This led to a perception of nurses as uneducated, untrustworthy, and morally questionable, 8:09 [SPEAKER_00]: because it was chaotic and in many ways unsafe, not just for patients, but for the nurses as well. 8:19 [SPEAKER_00]: will start with the obvious danger, contagious diseases, cholera, typhoid, and tuberculosis were rampant during this time, spreading like wildfire in the hospital wards. 8:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Nurses were constantly exposed to these illnesses, and without any knowledge of germ theory or effective treatments, they were exceptionally vulnerable. 8:46 [SPEAKER_00]: and London hospitals, it said that nurses were four times more likely to die from infectious diseases than other women, four times, but overcrowding in chaos were part of daily life and hospitals. 9:04 [SPEAKER_00]: If you were a nurse back then, you would have to care for far more patients 9:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine a room packed with sick and injured people. 9:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Everyone demanding your help at once, in your just one person, trying to manage it all. 9:29 [SPEAKER_00]: And then calm the less obvious dangers, like violence from the patients at the hospital. 9:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Because nurses weren't just tending to physical wounds. 9:40 [SPEAKER_00]: They also cared for patients suffering from severe mental health conditions, or delirium, caused by illness. 9:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Without proper training and how to handle these situations, they often face violent outbursts, putting their own safety at risk, and because most nurses weren't trained, 10:04 [SPEAKER_00]: They had to rely on instinct, lock, and sheer determination to get through each day. 10:11 [SPEAKER_00]: In a nutshell, women who worked as nurses in the early 1800s did it because they literally had no other options. 10:23 [SPEAKER_00]: This was not a calling, but was a means for survival. 10:27 [SPEAKER_00]: It was exhausting, dangerous, and thankless. 10:31 [SPEAKER_00]: And after you'd spent your entire day, caring for the sick, you'd return to a society that looked down on you and shunned you for it. 10:42 [SPEAKER_00]: And it all boils down to house society viewed women's roles at the time. 10:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, in the 19th century, women were expected to be caregivers 10:55 [SPEAKER_00]: cooking, cleaning, and feeding were the natural duties of any woman in the family, but only within the confines of their family. 11:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Their natural role as a society saw it was to nurture, but only in ways that reinforced traditional family structures. 11:17 [SPEAKER_00]: For women to step outside these boundaries, even to care for the sick, was seen as improper. 11:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Respectable women didn't work in hospitals or interact with male patients, and because nursing wasn't seen as requiring any particular skill, it wasn't considered a job that deserved respect or recognition. 11:45 [SPEAKER_00]: This was also obvious in the states of the hospitals, these women worked in, because if you are picturing a clean space with clean tools and equipment, you're in for a surprise. 11:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Hospitals in the early 19th century were places of desperation. 12:03 [SPEAKER_00]: They were overcrowded, poorly ventilated, and usually filthy. 12:08 [SPEAKER_00]: There was little understanding of hygiene, or infection control. 12:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Jerome theory hadn't yet been accepted, so disease spread quickly and easily. 12:21 [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, if you suggested doctors wash their hands before and after surgery, you would likely be laughed out of the room. 12:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Before the 1840s, the concept of handwashing as a critical hygiene practice was 12:44 [SPEAKER_00]: This might shock you or gross you out, but it wasn't until the late 20th century, that hand hygiene was formally integrated to health care guidelines. 12:55 [SPEAKER_00]: But coming back to the 19th century, beds and hospitals were crammed together, and there was zero privacy for patients, bedding and bandages were reused, even when soiled, because supplies were limited. 13:12 [SPEAKER_00]: The air reaked of illness and decay. 13:17 [SPEAKER_00]: If you fell sick in the 19th century, you will be better off staying at home and having your family take care of you. 13:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And many people did because if you were a wealthy person, 13:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Living in the early 19th century, chances are you do everything in your power to avoid a hospital, stepping into one, felt like signing your own death warrant, because hospitals at the time were notorious for their high mortality rates. 13:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Surgery rarely ended up going well, because infection rates were high in those places 13:59 [SPEAKER_00]: So families that could afford it would just get private care at home. 14:06 [SPEAKER_00]: This perception of hospitals as grim last resort places created a cycle of stigma that extended far beyond the patients. 14:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Those who found themselves in a hospital were seen as failures. 14:23 [SPEAKER_00]: People who couldn't afford private care or who lacked the support of a family to nurse them back to health. 14:32 [SPEAKER_00]: This association between hospitals, poverty, and illness that a broader mistrust of the entire system. 14:41 [SPEAKER_00]: This created a cycle 14:45 [SPEAKER_00]: People didn't trust hospitals, so they avoided them whenever possible. 14:51 [SPEAKER_00]: This left hospitals struggling to care for the poorest and sickest members of society, usually with inadequate funding and resources. 15:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And because these institutions couldn't afford to pay skilled staff, they hired untrained or poorly trained workers, further reinforcing the perception that hospitals and the people working in them were subpar. 15:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Versus, this was especially damaging, and it slowed down overall progress in the health care sector. 15:31 [SPEAKER_00]: these women showed up, cared for the sick, and bore the worst of society's ridicule. 15:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And some went on to become hugely, noteworthy figures, even before Florence Nightingale. 15:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Like Mary C. Cole, who financed her own trip to Crimea during the war, and established the British hotel near the battlefield, where she provided care to wounded soldiers. 16:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Or Claire Barton, who became a prominent nurse during the Civil War in the United States, where she earned the nickname, The Angel of the Battlefield. 16:15 [SPEAKER_00]: She later founded the American Red Cross, which made a massive impact on nursing and emergency response. 16:23 [SPEAKER_00]: But despite their successes, societal views on nursing are main to complex and conflicted. 16:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Nurses continued to face stereotypes that portrayed them as subservient to doctors or as angels of mercy. 16:42 [SPEAKER_00]: The images of nurses were tied to traditional gender roles, things like nurturing, compassion and humility were emphasized and traits like skill and knowledge were downplayed. 16:56 [SPEAKER_00]: This stereotype persisted well into the 20th century and still exists in some places today. 17:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Even during World War I and World War II, while nurses were revered for their service, they still faced limitations in their roles in compensation. 17:15 [SPEAKER_00]: This is a side of expectation for them to behave demurly towards male patients further reinforced gender-based stereotypes. 17:27 [SPEAKER_00]: As the mid-19th century approached, the state of nursing and health care in general was dire, hospitals were overwhelmed, diseases were rampant, and nurses were still undervalued and untrained. 17:44 [SPEAKER_00]: The system was on the brink of collapse. 17:48 [SPEAKER_00]: It's no wonder that nursing wasn't seen as a desirable profession, the risks were enormous, the rewards were minimal, and society offered no respect or recognition for their work. 18:04 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the question is, how do you take a profession, mired in such danger and disrespect, and turn it into something that saves lives, commands respect, and inspires people to follow in your footsteps. 18:27 [SPEAKER_00]: That's the story we'll dive into next time, as we meet the woman who dared to change it all. 18:35 [SPEAKER_00]: In the lady with the lamb.
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