This is an example of a job description of a floor nurse from 1887 that was published in a magazine of Cleveland Lutheran Hospital. You can see the influence of Florence Nightingale. You can also see where the handmaiden stereotype came from. Enjoy!

1887 Nursing Job Description

In addition to caring for your 50 patients, each bedside nurse will follow these regulations:

1. Daily sweep and mop the floors of your ward, dust the patient's furniture and window sills.

2. Maintain an even temperature in your ward by bringing in a scuttle of coal for the day's business.

3. Light is important to observe the patient's condition. Therefore, each day fill kerosene lamps, clean chimneys and trim wicks.

4. The nurse's notes are important in aiding your physician's work. Make your pens carefully; you may whittle nibs to your individual taste.

5. Each nurse on day duty will report every day at 7 a.m. and leave at 8 p.m., except on the Sabbath, on which day she will be off from 12 noon to 2 p.m.

6. Graduate nurses in good standing with the director of nurses will be given an evening off each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if you go regularly to church.

7. Each nurse should lay aside from each payday a goodly sum of her earnings for her benefits during her declining years, so that she will not become a burden. For example, if you earn $30 a month, you should set aside $15.

8. Any nurse who smokes, uses liquor in any form, gets her hair done at a beauty shop or frequents dance halls will give the director of nurses good reason to suspect her worth, intentions and integrity.

9. The nurse who performs her labors [and] serves her patients and doctors faithfully and without fault for a period of five years will be given an increase by the hospital administration of five cents per day.

http://scrubsmag.com/a-list-of-rules-for-nurses-from-1887/

OK, if the day nurse only works two hours on Sunday, who is caring for the patient???

This is from a day when the MD's knew less than what our contemporary nurses know about medicine. I am glad nurses are more active in healing now.

I think students cared for Pts when regular nursing staff was off. They got the butt end of all the nursing jobs. I think this is what we studied in nursing school but I could be wrong

This is an urban legend that has been posted here before. Snopes discredited a nearly identical list that was supposedly about teachers. snopes.com: 1872 Rules for Teachers