PDF (Whole thesis) - UTas ePrints - University of Tasmania

168
''The Nightingale Fund" at which he announced that he was confemplating
proposing the establishment of an institution for training nurses in
Hobart Town .
As a medical man of no slight experience in larg hospitals
he had long experienced the want of efficient trained nurses,
long seen the evil effects of emp loying mere hirelings .
Time after time had his heart been wrung when he found his
directions had been neglected, his patients suffering, their
food curtailed by hireling nurs es .
'
Until such time as nurses could be trained, he hoped that more peop le
would serve in hospitals as a "labour of love11 • 4
Two nights later, when
Hall attended the Mechanics ' Institute again to deliver lecture on the
"Structure and Functions of the Human Skin", a fellow citizen, W. Rout ,
agreed to cooperate with him in the preservation of Pub lic Health and in
the foundation of a Nurses ' Institute.
Apart from Mi ller's ever-ready
journalistic support, it was the first pub lic offer of cooperation which
Hal l had received and, as such, was warmly welcomed. 5
Like other recent lectures by Hall, that of July 18 was reported
at length in the Daily News to enab le as many people as possible to
receive its message .
Although his easy, quiet, but impressive style of
delivery always attracted a large audience to the Mechanics ' Institute,
his lectures were aimed at the Pub lic beyond its doors as well.
Each
lecture he gave now, no matter what its title might be, was a lecture on
Public Health in which he persistently drew attention to the sanitary
principles commonly accepted overseas;
ventilation of homes and public buildings.
News
in this case, the correct
In the words of the Daily
the lectrer concluded by saying they were all personally
and vitally interested in so momentous a subject, and that
he should make no apology for forcing it upon their attention
at every convenient opportunity. That while so large a
proportion of the people were yearly perishing from neglect,
from causes which he knew to be remediab le, he should be a
traitor to his conscience were he not to utter the voice of
warning. The ruling axiom, he said, of his profession was
that 'We wound to heal ', that many a bitter nauseous dose of
physic had to be administered for wholesome ends , though
repugnant to the taste, and that in this spirit he would
even risk boring them by his pertinacity in these vital subjects ,
because it was for their good more than his own.
4 ' Daily News , July 16, 1856.
5 Daily News , July 22, 1856.