A Respectable Occupation: - University of Hertfordshire Research ...

sexes which has worked tolerably well for four thousand years.‖ 252 It was
against this varied background that the occupation of becoming an
apothecaries‘ assistant became popular. The training was relatively
inexpensive and of short duration. The entry requirements to commence the
training were not very challenging and the employment was considered
respectable.
But before considering the apothecaries‘ assistants further, we need
to mention that nursing as an occupation has been well reported in the
literature. The early nurses, according to Godden and Helmstader were
lower class women whose job it was to clean the wards, although they were
involved in some medical care. 253 By the middle of the nineteenth century
upper middle class women were engaged in an unpaid supervisory role. 254
They had no nursing skills, but had expertise in the relevant skill of
supervising domestic staff. 255 In contrast, other professions that were
emerging at the time required a significant degree of technical skill in each
of their members, with those in senior positions possessing even greater
knowledge. 256
By 1885 the distinction between these two types of nurse was
disappearing and nurses were technically more competent and directly
supervised by the medical staff. 257 Increasingly by 1900, many nurses were
252 Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions, 3 (1 March 1873), p. 698; Chemist and Druggist, 14 (18
May 1878), p. 13 quoted in Jordan, „The Great Principle of English Fair Play‟, 394, note 61.
253 J. Godden and C. Helmstader, „Women‟s Mission and Professional Knowledge: Nightingale Nursing
in Colonial Australia and Canada‟, Social History of Medicine, 17, 2, (2004) 163 and Summers, Angels
and Citizens, p. 14.
254 Summers, Angels and Citizens, p. 95.
255 Summers, Angels and Citizens, pp. 21-22.
256 Godden and Helmstader, „Woman‟s Mission and Professional Knowledge‟, 164.
257 Summers, Angels and Citizens, pp. 95-96.
63