Florence Nightingale once said that nursing was left to “those who were too old, too weak, too drunken, too dirty, too stupid or too bad to do anything else”.
This shocking statement is an indication of the terrible reputation of nurses prior to the reforms of the 19th and 20th century. Viewed as lowly and unskilled, most nurses were held in similar regard to housemaids. For the lower classes, training was free and they were paid a salary. However, there was no consistent standard of training with some nurses mainly scrubbing floors.
For middle- or upperclass women, training was available for a fee. Promotion was swift, with just four years from trainee nurse to matron in some instances. However, even these nurses were viewed with suspicion because it was considered indecent for any respectable woman to be intimate with
