From the standing orders of St.Thomas’ Hospital 1689-1782

Thought ya'll would get a kick out of these. They were actually on a white cotton tea towel my friend's Mom gave me... (She was a British RN who trained at what had been named the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing in England. She gave this to me when I entered the Nursing Programme at UNB.)

From the standing orders of St.Thomas’ Hospital 1689-1782

Rules for Nurses and other Members of the Hospital:

1. No person shall be allowed into the House who is visited or suspected to be visited with the “plague,” itch, scald head, or other infectious diseases and if any such a be taken in, then to be discharged as soon as discovered.

2. Patients shall not Swear, not take God’s Name in vain, nor revile, nor miscall one another nor strike or beat another, nor steal Meat, or Drink, Apparel, or other thing, one from another.

3. Patients shall not abuse themselves by inordinate Drinking, nor incontinent living nor talk, nor not immodestly , upon pain of explusion: and when they go to or return from the Meals and Beds, they shall crave God’s Blessing and return Thanks to God.

4. No Drink shall be brought in and sold to Patients except by the Physician’s and Surgeon’s License.

5. No Patient with the Foul disease shall go out of his Ward, nor come into the House to fetch anything, nor within Chapel, nor sit upon the seats in the Courtyards, upon pain of Expulsion.

6. None of the Women shall go into the Men’s Wards, nor the Men into the Women’s wards, without License, upon pain of Expulsion.

7. The Sisters shall clean the wards by 6 a.m.

8. Every tenth bed is to be left empty to air and not more than one patient is to be put into each bed.

9. The Sisters shall see that no Card Play or Dicing takes place in the House.

10. If any of thew Sisters shall disoder themselves by brawling with one another, or other misdemeanor, she is to be removed her Ward and subsequently discharged the House forever.

11. Old sheets shall be washed and given to the Surgeons for Dressings.

12. No Surgeon shall suffer his Servant to perform any operation: dilate or cut open imposthumes or Sinuous Ulcers except the Master of such Servant be present and direct the same.

13. No dead body shall be opened Dissected or dismembered without leave from the Treasurer Steward in the Absence of the Treasurer.

14. The Sexton shall keep the Chapel and yards clean and make graves six feet deep, six feet long and three feet wide at Eighteen pence each.
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Oh my gosh... these are hilarious! I am just imagining going back to working in ER with these rules... way too funny!

Helen wrote:

Oh my gosh... these are hilarious! I am just imagining going back to working in ER with these rules... way too funny!

OHMY, I KNOW!~ Ack! lmbo.

Wow! Some tough rules back in the day.

LOL I KNOW! I am so glad I was not a nurse back then! PMP!

These are like the old rules they had for the teachers in the 1800's. We had some posted in our teacher's lounge & they were hilarious. Ones like "no skirts above the ankle, curfew is 8pm, cannot be seen in a bathing suit, no short hair" etc.

spuccini wrote:

These are like the old rules they had for the teachers in the 1800's. We had some posted in our teacher's lounge & they were hilarious. Ones like "no skirts above the ankle, curfew is 8pm, cannot be seen in a bathing suit, no short hair" etc.

For sure! LMBO- anyone in service to others was held to a higher standard in those times,, I guess!

Thank Goodness nurses went from being women of ill-repute to women held in good esteem! (Many thanks to Florence N. for THAT!)

:-) Some of them actually make sense, though!