Changes in care and treatment - hospitals

• Hospitals in the early 19th century were not always safe. Many patients would die because of the conditions on the wards, such as: few toilets and poor sewerage systems, overcrowded wards with a lack of fresh air, and a lack of cleanliness, which led to the spread of infection
• Prior to the late 20th century, nurses were usually female. Rather than there being much criticism of standards in hospitals, sometimes untrained nurses were criticised for being 'drunk' on hospital wards. Female medical workers were often not properly recognised for the hard work and dedication they displayed towards their patients.
• Florence Nightingale


  Trained to become a nurse in Germany before working in a hospital in London. When the Crimean War broke out in 1853, she was asked by the government to look after injured soldiers in the army hospital in Scutari.
• Nightingale was shocked at the conditions she found. The overworked medical staff were not being given the proper supplies of either food or medicine, and things were extremely dirty. Infections among the patients were common - the soldiers could come in with a wound or injury but catch an illness such as typhus, typhoid, cholera or dysentery while they were in the hospital. The numbers of deaths from infection and illness shocked Nightingale and her staff.
• Changes put in place in the hospital by Nightingale


  1. Ensuring there was regular hand washing

  2. Making improvements to sewerage

  3. Making improvements to ventilation
• Miasma


  Smells from decomposing material, such as animal and human waste, that were thought to cause disease.
• Nightingale had always believed that disease was caused by miasma. Therefore, she concentrated on keeping the wards and patients clean to remove the substances that would cause 'bad air'. She passed these ideas on to the nurses who trained in her schools.
• Mary Seacole


  A Jamaican businesswoman and healer who had considerable experience of helping British soldiers and treating those with diseases such as cholera. She volunteered to travel to Crimea to help the war effort there.
• Seacole paid for her own travel to Crimea and set up a hostel there, having met with Nightingale briefly. The 'British Hotel' offered rest and recovery for British officers and Seacole was affectionately known as Mother Seacole by the soldiers.
• Workhouse


  A place where the homeless poor were sent in 19th century England.
• Infirmary


  A hospital.
• Infectious disease


  A disease spread from one person to another.
• Fever hospitals were established for those suffering with infectious diseases such as smallpox and scarlet fever. Their aim was to treat those suffering while separating them from the general public.