Nursing Care Given to the Plague Infected Patients in the Hospital General of Madrid (Spain) in the 17th Century.

• Main Author: Manuel Jesús García Martínez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad de Sevilla 2016-12-01
• Series: Historia. Instituciones. Documentos
• Subjects: Plague disease; nursing care; constitutions of hospital; ob- regones Nurses; obregones nurses; nursing teaching treatises
• Online Access: http://institucional.us.es/revistas/historia/43/9_Garc%C3%ADa%20Mart%C3%ADnez%20M.J..pdf

This study reveals the work developed by the nurses of the Hospital general of Madrid (Spain) in the treatment of the plague, and the training they received for their welfare tasks in the 17th century. Since the end of the 16th century, nurses knew and implemented a set of techniques and medicines to alleviate the terrible disease of the plague and, despite the scarce knowledge about the disease existing at the time, they sought to prevent the contagion with hygienic and dietary measures, and physical isolation. This study shows through which actions and in which conditions nurses worked to deal with such a terrible disease. All this helps to get a full knowledge of the development of the work done by nurses in the last five centuries and, therefore, to determine the evolution and shaping of the nursing profession in our country.