Introductory Notes on Lying-In Institutions.
NIGHTNGALE, Florence
London: Longmans, Green, and Co.. 1871.
Description:
First edition. 8vo. 214x145mm. pp. xiv, [2], 110, [2pp ads], 16pp Longmans' adverts dated September 1871. Five plates, including one folding. Original cloth decorated in blind, recently repaired and rebacked. Some fading to boards. Many pages unopened. E5 has a horizontal closed tear (c50mm) affecting the text but not legibility but otherwise very good internally and overall an excellent copy.
A lying-in institution was the old term for what are now maternity hospitals. Florence Nightingale was prompted to write this book when it became clear that mothers who were admitted to lying-in hospitals were more likely to die in childbirth that those who did not. She described the situation as "little short of a calamity" and "almost a subject for an inquest". This study is by way of an inquest and it led Nature magazine to declare that "lying-in establishments are destructive of human life, and should be forthwith closed, and that poor women should, as a rule, be attended at home". The book goes on to plead for suitable institutions which replicate, as far as possible, the conditions of a private home. Nightingale provides plans for such hospitals and concludes with a strongly argued appendix in which she appeals to women to make this branch of medicine their own. Much of the problem with childbirth was that male doctors (i.e. almost all doctors) were not interested in practising it and women weren't being properly trained in midwifery. The solution, according to Nightingale, was that more women should become doctors and should then specialise in this area. "There is a better thing than making women into medical men, and that is making them into medical women".
Description:
First edition. 8vo. 214x145mm. pp. xiv, [2], 110, [2pp ads], 16pp Longmans' adverts dated September 1871. Five plates, including one folding. Original cloth decorated in blind, recently repaired and rebacked. Some fading to boards. Many pages unopened. E5 has a horizontal closed tear (c50mm) affecting the text but not legibility but otherwise very good internally and overall an excellent copy.
A lying-in institution was the old term for what are now maternity hospitals. Florence Nightingale was prompted to write this book when it became clear that mothers who were admitted to lying-in hospitals were more likely to die in childbirth that those who did not. She described the situation as "little short of a calamity" and "almost a subject for an inquest". This study is by way of an inquest and it led Nature magazine to declare that "lying-in establishments are destructive of human life, and should be forthwith closed, and that poor women should, as a rule, be attended at home". The book goes on to plead for suitable institutions which replicate, as far as possible, the conditions of a private home. Nightingale provides plans for such hospitals and concludes with a strongly argued appendix in which she appeals to women to make this branch of medicine their own. Much of the problem with childbirth was that male doctors (i.e. almost all doctors) were not interested in practising it and women weren't being properly trained in midwifery. The solution, according to Nightingale, was that more women should become doctors and should then specialise in this area. "There is a better thing than making women into medical men, and that is making them into medical women".