Notes on Hospitals by Florence Nightingale second edition 1859
London: John W. Parker and Son, 1859
8vo., original textured brown cloth with triple-line border embossed to both boards, lettered in gilt to upper board and spine with date to foot; coated red endpapers; pp. [ix], 2-108, with numerous tables, maps and figures in text, as well as one folding letterpress table and an additional four plates of hospital plans as called for; sometime thoughtfully rebacked, with boards a little scuffed, scratched and stained; some rubbing to edges with boards showing through at corners; vertical strip of sunning to upper board; scuffing to endpapers at repaired hinges; light marking and spotting within text but otherwise a very good, clean and well-kept copy. Provenance: Previously in the medical library of a Dr Gray, with the stamp of Melville Hospital Medical Library, Chatham, to the front free endpaper and half title, as well as shelf markings in black ink to the front paste-down. The library was constructed for the use of ex service men, sailors and marines in Chatham.
Second edition. The essays were first issued in wraps and released privately, with the present work being the first appearance in book form. A final edition was released in 1863.
It was while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean war that Nightingale saw first-hand the effects of overcrowding, lack of light and ventilation in hospital environments. In 1854 she was sent to Scutari with a staff of a further 38 female volunteers to care for the wounded. After seeing the poor conditions in which the facilities were kept, Nightingale implemented a series of changes which would ultimately reduce the death rate from 42% to just 2%. She blamed hospital deaths on the collection of large numbers of the sick and wounded under one roof, lack of ventilation, and defective sewers. After she returned home she continued to strive for hospital reform, including for better hygiene and living standards. In order to affirm her position, she is also known today as being somewhat of an innovator in statistics, representing her findings in graphical form including infographics, and she is also credited with the creation of the polar area diagram, also called the Nightingale rose diagram, which is still widely used today.
The book is formed of two papers which were read in 1857 and October 1858, with the first given as evidence to the Royal Commissioners on the state of the army, and the second at the Liverpool meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science. Printed here together for the first time, with an appendix on hospital sites and construction, it became upon publication the most exhaustive study to date of hospital planning and administration, and is copiously enhanced with hospital plans for Vincennes Military Hospital and The Royal Victoria Hospital in Netley, charts showing the number of deaths, and figures demonstrating the cost of the proposed works. In them, Nightingale shows how pavilion plan wards, connected by open corridors, can vastly improve air circulation, thus minimising the chances of infection.
Scarce in the original publisher’s cloth.