1900 – A notebook compiled by a nursing student at the Phoenixville Hospital in Pennsylvania.
Phoenixville, Pennsylvania: 1900. Notebook. This 8”x10” journal 152 pages of which approximately two-thirds are filled with text. Four additional pages of text are laid in. The handwriting is legible, binding sound, and hinges intact. The reattached front free endpaper is inscribed, “M. Emilie Evans / Phoenixville Hospital / Penna. / Nov. 14, 1900.” The cover is worn and soiled and the spine covering is missing. Overall, in nice shape.
In addition to technical matters, her notes include references to bedside manners as well, such as:
“Women in labor are very impressible, quick to observe and frequently wrongly interpret even trifling indiscretions of word or act. . .. It would be dreadful for a nurse to lose self control. . ..”
The Phoenixville hospital was founded in 1893 to expedite the treatment the large number of injuries that occurred at the Phoenix Iron Company in lieu of patients being transported to Philadelphia by train. The contents appear to primarily be notes recorded by Emilie from lectures that she attended. They include:
Anatomy and Osteology
Bacteriology
Care for mother and child during puerperium
Circulatory system
Contagious disease
Death
Delivery
Diseases of skin
Digestion
Drugs and their uses
Fevers and fever nursing
Food and Digestion
General observations
Histology. Cells and cell tissue
Normal Labor
Obstetrics
The patient
Poisons and their antidotes
Pregnancy
Splints
Sudden Insensibility
Surgical Cleanliness and Asepsis
Tuberculosis
. Very good. Item #009882Uncommon. At the time of listing, no similar nurse training journals are for sale in the trade. None are listed by the Rare Book Hub as having appeared at auction, and OCLC identifies three as being held by institutions.
Price: $650.00