Conference to give nursing the history treatment
A major conference at Swansea University later this month will examine the history of how the nursing profession has improved public health – not just through treatment and recuperation, but also advice, instruction, and prevention of illness.
Formal medicine can trace its roots back to Egyptian physicians, yet many of the greatest advances in health care came only after the introduction of nursing as a formal profession in Victorian times.
With more than 380,000 trained and registered nurses in the UK, it is difficult to imagine that, until the mid-1800s, attending to the needs of the sick was often left to those who were, in the words of Florence Nightingale, "Too old, too weak, too drunken, too dirty, too stupid, or too bad to do anything else".
The conference – Nursing, Public Health and Welfare – which will be held on Tuesday, November 13, has been organised jointly by the History of Nursing Society of the Royal College of Nursing and Swansea University's School of Health Science.
It will discuss research into major themes in the study of the history of nursing including the impact of district nurses on health in South Wales, how health visitors transformed the health care of the poor in the early 1900s, and the advances made in orthopaedic nursing in the first half of the 20th Century.
Speakers will include former Glyncorrwg GP and champion of the Socialist Health Association Dr Julian Tudor-Hart, nursing historian Professor Christopher Maggs, and the acclaimed author and Professor of Healthcare and Medical Humanities Anne Borsay.
Further information about the conference is available from Dr Ruth Davies, School of Health Science, by calling +00 44 (0)1792 602253.
For further information about the School of Health Science at Swansea University, visit the School's website.
