Mary Adelaide Nutting

Mary Adelaide Nutting (born November 1, 1858 in Frost Village, Québec , Canada , † October 3, 1948 in White Plains (New York) ) was a Canadian nurse, nursing historian and professor of nursing.

Life

Mary Adelaide Nutting spent her youth in Waterloo, Québec. After finishing school she studied art history and worked as a teacher. She began to be interested in the work of Florence Nightingale . In 1889, at the age of 31, Nutting became one of 17 first-year nursing students at the Johns Hopkins school of nursing in Baltimore . She finished fourth best. In 1891 her case description of a typhus patient was awarded first prize in the specialist journal "Trained Nurse". Nutting succeeded Isabel Hampton Robb as director of the Johns Hopkins Nursing School. She enforced the eight-hour nursing day at Johns Hopkins Hospital and increased the duration of nursing education to three years. The Johns Hopkins Hospital had been under the direction of the Canadian clinician Sir William Osler since 1889 , who also dealt with issues of medical education and was active as a medical historian. Osler's work inspired Mary Adelaide Nutting and her colleague Lavinia Dock.

Works on the history of nursing

During the years at Johns Hopkins Hospital she collected material on the history of nursing, which she published as a four-volume work between 1907 and 1912 together with Lavinia Dock under the title "A History of Nursing". Nutting and Dock referred fundamentally to Pyotr Alexejewitsch Kropotkin in their “History of Nursing” . For Kropotkin, there was no question that nature had a “law of mutual help”. An instinct that has developed over a long period of time teaches humans and animals the meaningfulness of mutual help, i.e. also the meaningfulness of care. The standard work by Mary Adelaide Nutting and Lavinia Lloyd Dock marked the beginning of modern historical nursing research, although it contained methodological weaknesses.

First global professorship for nursing education

In 1910, a position as a university lecturer for Mary Adelaide Nutting at the Teachers College of Columbia University in New York City was created under the title of "Professor of Domestic Administration". The position was later renamed "Professor of Nursing Education". Mary Adelaide Nutting thus held the world's first professorship for nursing education. Nutting designed a level scheme for nursing training that ranged from primary school to university education. Access to training in nursing should also be made possible for young people from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds.

Honor

In 1945 Mary Adelaide Nutting was awarded the Liberty Science Medal for her services to war nursing in both world wars.

Works

Together with Lavinia Dock: A history of Nursing . GP Putnam's Sons, New York & London 1907–1912, 4 volumes, Volume I (1907) (digitized) , Volume II (1907) (digitized) , Volume III (1912) (digitized) , Volume IV (1912) (digitized)
- Agnes Karll (translator). Mary Adelaide Nutting and Lavinia Dock. History of nursing . D. Reimer, Berlin 1910–1913 Volume I (1910) (digitized version) Volume II (1911) (digitized version) Volume III (1913) (digitized version)
A Sound Economic Basis for Schools of Nursing , GP Putnam's Sons, NYC, 1925.

literature

Karin Wittneben : The development of professional and scientific nursing education in the USA from 1872-1990 , in: Maria Mischo-Kelling and Karin Wittneben: Pflegebildung und Pflegetheorien , Urban & Schwarzenberg Munich et al., First edition 1995, pages 11-33.
Horst-Peter Wolff: Mary Adelaide Nutting , in: Horst-Peter Wolff (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon for Nursing History “Who was who in nursing history” , Volume 1, Ullstein Mosby Berlin and Wiesbaden 1997, p. 141.

Individual evidence

^ Livia Prüll: Sir William Osler , in: Wolfgang U. Eckart and Christoph Gradmann (eds.): Ärztelexikon. From antiquity to the present , 3rd edition 2006 Springer Verlag Heidelberg, Berlin, New York, pp. 246 + 247. doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-540-29585-3 .
↑ Peter Kropotkin : Mutual help in the animal and human world , authorized German edition obtained from Gustav Landauer , Verlag Theodor Thomas, Leipzig 1908, foreword pages V and VI.
^ Nutting, Dock, in translation by Agnes Karll, Vol. I, 1907, p. 5.
^ Wolfgang U. Eckart and Robert Jütte : Medical History. An introduction , Böhlau Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2007, care history p. 286.

personal data
SURNAME	Nutting, Mary Adelaide
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Canadian nurse, professor of nursing and nursing historian
DATE OF BIRTH	November 1, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH	Frost Village (Quebec) , Canada
DATE OF DEATH	October 3, 1948
Place of death	White Plains (New York) , USA

[1] Livia Prüll: Sir William Osler , in: Wolfgang U. Eckart and Christoph Gradmann (eds.): Ärztelexikon. From antiquity to the present , 3rd edition 2006 Springer Verlag Heidelberg, Berlin, New York, pp. 246 + 247. doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-540-29585-3 .

[2] Peter Kropotkin : Mutual help in the animal and human world , authorized German edition obtained from Gustav Landauer , Verlag Theodor Thomas, Leipzig 1908, foreword pages V and VI.

[3] Nutting, Dock, in translation by Agnes Karll, Vol. I, 1907, p. 5.

[4] Wolfgang U. Eckart and Robert Jütte : Medical History. An introduction , Böhlau Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2007, care history p. 286.