Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/353

The Past and Future 337 other professions if one judges by the standards of pubHc service, ethical idealism and professional solidarity. The place where it is weakest is on the educational side. There are only a few schools of nursing which according to modern standards of professional education, might fairly be called pro- fessional schools, and until we strengthen our foundations here and raise our general standards of preliminary education our professional status is likely to be questioned. It is sometimes argued that because nursing is so closely identified with the practice of medicine, it cannot be given an independent professional status, but must be considered as a kind of sub- ordinate branch or "satellite" of medicine. A very brief review of the historical relations of nursing and medicine will show that nursing is not an outgrowth of medicine, but has had an inde- pendent development for many hundreds of years. Although springing from much the same roots, nursing and medicine as we have seen, were in- fluenced largely by different forces and . . . p „. Thehistori- movements, medicme rismg or lallmg cal relations with the spirit of scientific inquiry, and nursing the advancement of learning, while nursing followed more closely the waves of religious enthusiasm and social and humanitarian effort.