“Besides needing to learn about medications, the nurse also needed to understand the need for ventilation, proper diets, how to weigh and measure, take temperatures, insert catheters, give enemas, care for patients who were blistered and leeched, apply poultices, give baths, and prepare patients for procedures and surgery.”

Abstracted from a letter by Florence Nightingale, describing the training of nursing students in England. 1896