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Notes on Hospitals
A practical and historically important look at hospital design and care
This edition presents Florence Nightingale’s essential ideas on how hospital buildings and daily routines affect patient outcomes. It covers how construction, ventilation, light, drainage, and clean linen practices influence recovery and mortality. The book also outlines how to organize nursing staff, wards, and operating spaces to support safe, efficient care.
Readers will gain a clear view of the problems Nightingale identified in 19th‑century hospitals and the concrete steps she recommended to improve conditions. The text blends observations on hospital architecture with practical guidance for kitchens, laundries, sanitation, and administration. It emphasizes reducing harm to patients through thoughtful design and disciplined, well‑structured care.
How ward layout and bed placement affect nursing and supervision Standards for ventilation, light, and clean water in patient spaces Consistent, efficient routines for laundry, linen, and waste management Roles and organization of nursing staff in different hospital systems Ideal for readers of medical history and anyone interested in the foundations of modern hospital design and care.
This edition presents Florence Nightingale’s essential ideas on how hospital buildings and daily routines affect patient outcomes. It covers how construction, ventilation, light, drainage, and clean linen practices influence recovery and mortality. The book also outlines how to organize nursing staff, wards, and operating spaces to support safe, efficient care.
Readers will gain a clear view of the problems Nightingale identified in 19th‑century hospitals and the concrete steps she recommended to improve conditions. The text blends observations on hospital architecture with practical guidance for kitchens, laundries, sanitation, and administration. It emphasizes reducing harm to patients through thoughtful design and disciplined, well‑structured care.
How ward layout and bed placement affect nursing and supervision Standards for ventilation, light, and clean water in patient spaces Consistent, efficient routines for laundry, linen, and waste management Roles and organization of nursing staff in different hospital systems Ideal for readers of medical history and anyone interested in the foundations of modern hospital design and care.
230 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
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63 people want to read
About the author
Florence Nightingale
217 books118 followersFlorence Nightingale, OM, RRC was an English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence during the Crimean War for her pioneering work in nursing, and was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night to tend injured soldiers. Nightingale laid the foundation stone of professional nursing with the principles summarised in the book Notes on Nursing. The Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses was named in her honour, and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world on her birthday.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 20, 2019
excellent record of her findings and views with respect to military and civilian hospitals.
August 12, 2022
DO NOT WASH your HANDS unless you do THIS she says - OPEN THE F WINDOWS people ! How many times does this woman make this point in every book she writes as a statistician observing outcomes of infection and health before antibiotics ?
Well here is where the CDC messed up REAL BAD on COVID and the general principles of infection control, the reason they STILL don’t classify it as “airborne” like TB and why we constructed every home and building incorrectly.
Whose Dr. Elliot? He messed up real bad sending us on a collision course to modern day health and infection control.
This is THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK that NO ONE ever read. Her data is conclusive that fresh ground floor air moving like the earths atmosphere, unobstructed is the #1 determinant in infection control and health, even with modern ventilation.
The higher you go up in a building the higher the infection rate and or space per patient needed for the inmates.
Ground floor earths atmosphere in climates cold better than hot, dry better than humid, most importantly how FAST it is moving the breath away from the human including space in cubic feet. The math is in line with MITs aerosol People area surfaces space project.
She brilliantly used “weather science” and fire as a vacuum to get rapid inflow from the TOP OF WINDOWS in cold weather- when a cold front hits a warm front what happens? It rains! So all the DROPLETS from the breath go down in the strata of air and get bigger to be cleaned from the floor and or sucked in from the fire at GROUND level !
A possible mechanism in which this works is the discovery of the microbiome. There is 90% wild yeast and 10% bacteria floating in most ecosystems. In our homes that is reversed. The air is stagnant. Before it enters it’s filtered or heated.
We are fermenting ourselves in a slow bake oven as she brilliantly points out. How could WE MISS this? It’s more important than FOOD well cooked for longevity and health?
Well here is where the CDC messed up REAL BAD on COVID and the general principles of infection control, the reason they STILL don’t classify it as “airborne” like TB and why we constructed every home and building incorrectly.
Whose Dr. Elliot? He messed up real bad sending us on a collision course to modern day health and infection control.
This is THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK that NO ONE ever read. Her data is conclusive that fresh ground floor air moving like the earths atmosphere, unobstructed is the #1 determinant in infection control and health, even with modern ventilation.
The higher you go up in a building the higher the infection rate and or space per patient needed for the inmates.
Ground floor earths atmosphere in climates cold better than hot, dry better than humid, most importantly how FAST it is moving the breath away from the human including space in cubic feet. The math is in line with MITs aerosol People area surfaces space project.
She brilliantly used “weather science” and fire as a vacuum to get rapid inflow from the TOP OF WINDOWS in cold weather- when a cold front hits a warm front what happens? It rains! So all the DROPLETS from the breath go down in the strata of air and get bigger to be cleaned from the floor and or sucked in from the fire at GROUND level !
A possible mechanism in which this works is the discovery of the microbiome. There is 90% wild yeast and 10% bacteria floating in most ecosystems. In our homes that is reversed. The air is stagnant. Before it enters it’s filtered or heated.
We are fermenting ourselves in a slow bake oven as she brilliantly points out. How could WE MISS this? It’s more important than FOOD well cooked for longevity and health?
June 18, 2023
It's sad that people still haven't figured out today--even after COVID--timeless logical concepts that Florence Nightingale was pointing out in 1859, like the difference between population density and crowding. It's also sad that people had to recently "discover" the importance of ventilation for preventing infection. I hope we don't soon have to rediscover the importance of things like sewers.
It's fascinating to see how she managed to prevent many deaths from infectious diseases before Germ Theory by providing sanitary conditions and measuring outcomes of interventions. Another interesting quality was her humility in visiting hospitals in other countries and going on about how they do certain things much better in Paris or Berlin or wherever.
This text is valubale for those interested in public health, prevention of epidemics, the Sanitarian movement, etc.
Overall however, this is pretty unreadable because it's extraordinarily redundant and mostly outdated and not meant for the general public in any case.
Quotes:
"It will be seen at a glance, that in every such case and in every such example, the 'infection' is not inevitable, but simply the result of carelessness and ignorance. As soon as this practical view of the subject is admitted and acted upon, we shall cease to hear of hospital contagions."
"The officer of health of towns ... does not do the work of the physician or surgeon; and on the other hand, you do not send for your physician or surgeon to drain your street."
It's fascinating to see how she managed to prevent many deaths from infectious diseases before Germ Theory by providing sanitary conditions and measuring outcomes of interventions. Another interesting quality was her humility in visiting hospitals in other countries and going on about how they do certain things much better in Paris or Berlin or wherever.
This text is valubale for those interested in public health, prevention of epidemics, the Sanitarian movement, etc.
Overall however, this is pretty unreadable because it's extraordinarily redundant and mostly outdated and not meant for the general public in any case.
Quotes:
"It will be seen at a glance, that in every such case and in every such example, the 'infection' is not inevitable, but simply the result of carelessness and ignorance. As soon as this practical view of the subject is admitted and acted upon, we shall cease to hear of hospital contagions."
"The officer of health of towns ... does not do the work of the physician or surgeon; and on the other hand, you do not send for your physician or surgeon to drain your street."
June 8, 2024
This felt like the nursing version of Leviticus. Sorry, Flo.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews