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doi: 10.1891/1062-8061.19.15pmid: 21329143
<p>Research in Montreal's St-Jean-de-Dieu Asylum archives has revealed a number of letters from family members and local physicians pleading for asylum care for married women between 1890 and 1921. When added to other admission documents in patients' medical files, these letters allow an intimate glimpse into private lives of families and highlight the pain and distress of dealing with mentally ill people in the home before the introduction of community mental health services. Far from easily abandoning a spouse or mother, close-knit French Canadian families struggled until they could no longer cope before seeking help. To comply with asylum regulations, family members (primarily husbands, who were often illiterate) and local physicians were required to justify their applications for admission, but they did so in different ways.</p>
doi: 10.1891/1062-8061.19.29pmid: 21329144
<p>The poor health status of black Americans was a widely recognized fact during the first third of the twentieth century. Excess mortality in black communities was frequently linked to the infectious disease tuberculosis, which was particularly menacing in densely populated urban settings. As health authorities in large cities struggled to keep pace with the needs of citizens, private charities worked to launch community-oriented attacks against the deadly disease. In 1914 a novel experiment to address excess mortality among blacks was launched in Philadelphia. The success of the health promotion campaign initiated by the Henry Phipps Institute and the Whittier Centre, two private charitable associations, has been attributed primarily to the presence of black clinicians, in particular public health nurse Elizabeth Tyler. This study suggests that community health efforts also rest on partnerships between like-minded organizations and coalition building. </p>
doi: 10.1891/1062-8061.19.53pmid: 21329145
<p>In the early twentieth century, patients with infectious fevers represented a danger to the health of others including their nurses. This research describes the training New Zealand nurses received in fever nursing during the period 1903 – 1923, and considers how they applied hospital cross-infection principles in emergency tent fever camps in remote rural areas. It examines the reaction of nurses, hospital boards, and physicians to nurses who succumbed with their patients' fevers. It therefore reveals attitudes to nurses, prevailing ideas about responsibility for nurses' health, and elements in the emerging professional culture of nursing. Although some measures protected them against epidemic fevers, nurses were held responsible for their own health. A complex anatomy of blame is evident against those who sickened; the nature of the blame shifted, depending on the observer, disease, and practice setting. Physicians blamed nurses, especially when they sickened with typhoid fever. The country's chief nurse and other nurses blamed those who jeopardized their health through ill-spent leisure time. Sick nurses could be absolved from blame for the lax discipline evident through their failure to observe cross-infection principles if their practice setting was the fever camp. Willingness to work in difficult circumstances showed they embodied the ideal of sacrifice that, like discipline, was part of the emerging nursing culture.</p>
doi: 10.1891/1062-8061.19.78pmid: 21329146
<p>During World War I and its aftermath, thousands of U.S. nurses put their domestic careers on hold to work overseas. Many volunteered in the wake of war and disaster. Others worked as instructors in nursing schools and as the staff of fledgling public health agencies. This article charts the international travels of four especially mobile nurses, whose globetrotting careers took them to Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. These women aspired to tackle world health issues, motivated by the conviction that the spread of U.S. professional nursing ideas stood to modernize the world. This article tells these nurses' stories and analyzes their ideologies of development and progress. In so doing, it demonstrates that professional women, working outside state channels, played a principal role in expanding U.S. influence in the world. Moreover, it makes the case for the centrality of nursing history to the history of U.S. foreign relations.</p>
doi: 10.1891/1062-8061.19.103pmid: 21329147
<p>In Canada, psychiatric nursing care is provided by two kinds of nurses. East of Manitoba, it is provided by registered nurses who may or may not have specialized psychiatric nursing education. In the four western provinces, a distinct professional group, registered psychiatric nurses, also provide care. Saskatchewan was the first province to achieve distinct legislation, in 1948, followed by British Columbia in 1951, Alberta in 1955, and Manitoba in 1960.</p>
doi: 10.1891/1062-8061.19.127pmid: 21329148
<p>The initial development of the Nursing Minimum Data Set (NMDS) was analyzed based on archival material from Harriet Werley and Norma Lang, two nurses involved with the project, and American Nurses Association materials. The process of identifying information to be included in the NMDS was contentious. Individual nurses argued on behalf of particular data because of a strong belief in how nursing practice (through information collection) should be structured. Little attention was paid to existing practice conditions that would ultimately determine whether the NMDS would be used.</p>
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