Aspen University

NURSING 490

Building the Profession of Nursing
Many people believe that nursing goes back to the era of Florence Nightingale, around
the year 1860. However, one of the earliest references found mentioning nursing is recorded in
250 B.C.E. During this time, the ruler of the Indian Mauryan Empire named Ashoka ordered
hospitals to be built along routes used for traveling. The decree stated that the hospitals built
were to be “well provided with instruments and medicine by skillful physicians and nurses.”
There have been several other historical mentions of nurses that supersede Nightingale as well.
Several of these historical mentions were regarding women who helped take care of the sick in
hospital-like setups, which could be found in churches, monasteries, or religious-like buildings.
In the roughly ten years before Nightingale founded the first nursing school, Mary Todd Lincoln
and Walt Whitman worked as volunteer nurses caring for the sick and injured during the
American Civil War[ CITATION Har16 \l 1033 ].
The History of Nursing
Countless events have happened, and people who had a significant influence over the past
several hundred years that aided in shaping nursing into the respected profession it is today.
Whether the events or people were instrument