ABSTRACT
Towards the end of the nineteenth century the matter of nurse registration became a contentious and divisive issue. This chapter examines hospital nursing from the end of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, by considering evidence presented in parliamentary debates, and analyse the attitudes and arguments that lay at the heart of the dispute. This evidence serves as a test of the general acceptance of the Nightingale vision within nursing at the end of the century. The registration debate focused on the standards of the profession. Then, nurse training schools were set up in many other London and provincial hospitals, for the most part modelled on the plan adopted by Nightingale. The purpose was to improve the moral qualities and character of the nurse and to give practical and scientific teaching so that she could carry out doctors' orders intelligently.
