NOTES ON NURSING: by NIGHTINGALE, Florence - [1860] What It Is and What It Is Not

London: Harrison, [1860]. First Edition, Second Issue.. 8vo, pp. 79. Bound in original pebbled limp cloth (some nicks to the spine cloth), moderate foxing throughout. Former owner's name on the title-page. With advertisements on the yellow endpapers for "Burke's Peerage" for 1860, but without the notice, "The right of translation is reserved" on title. Bishop & Goldie, p.17; Garrison & Morton 1612; Norman 1602. Skretkowicz's detailed examination of over 100 copies has revealed an indiscriminate variation in binding, end-papers (both colours and type settings) and typographic corrections. He states that "virtually all copies examined are made up of different combinations of sheets in many varying states. This binding together of mixtures of sheets in different states occurs almost immediately, possibly within hours of beginning production. Given the considerable number of different states of each inner and outer forme in every sheet, the idea of attempting to establish with certainty any specific `issue' of `Notes on Nursing' beyond the first is utterly impractical."

Nightingale (1829-1910) is called the founder of modern nursing as she was the one to raise it to the status of a trained profession. Her Nightingale School for Nurses, which opened in 1860, sent nurses all over the earth to establish training schools. "Florence Nightingale's 79-page monograph reflects the intelligence, efficiency, and administrative talent of the woman who inaugurated the professional training of nurses in England and, indirectly, in the United States... The need for radical reform in the care of the sick was made evident to Miss Nightingale... through service in the barracks hospital in Scutari during the Crimean War. So effectively did she cut through ancient regulations in establishing a clean and efficiently run army hospital that, on her return to England, she was asked to establish a training school for nurses... Notes on Nursing was written with simplicity and direct common sense, enlivened by occasional sharp wit... Notes on Nursing is one of the seminal books of the modern world" (Lilly, 215).