There is no doubt that nursing has a theoretical basis, regardless of it historical lack of professional recognition. Most nurses would agree that the theoretical beginning of nursing occurred during the reformative period when Florence Nightingale attempted to define what nursing is and what it is not, in an attempt to resolve its duplicity in the medical community and among the public. She furthered what has been referred to as the medical model of nursing theory, through a definitive work associated with defining the role of nurses and medicine in the curative processes of nature.
             ...the function of an organ becomes obstructed; medicine, as far as we know, assists nature to remove the obstruction, but does nothing more. Nurses could be actively involved in this process of 'putting the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him' if given appropriate training. This may also remove them from their subservient position to the physician. Nightingale stated that, 'if I have succeeded in any measure in . . . showing what true nursing is, and what it is not, my object will have been answered.'™ (Mckenna, 1997, p. 86)
             Historically speaking, nursing has been seen as a adjunct at times to medical intervention, and at other times the necessary aspects of any "servant" of the ill.
             Woman is an instinctive nurse, taught by Mother Nature. The nurse has always been a necessity, thus lacked social status. In primitive times she was a slave, and in the civilized era a domestic. Overlooked in the plans of legislators, and forgotten in the curricula of pedagogues, she was left without protection and remained without education. She was not an artisan who could obtain the help of an hereditary guild; there was no Hanseatic League for nurses. Drawn from the nameless and numberless army of poverty, the nurse worked as a menial and obeyed as a servant. Denied the dignity of a trade, and devoid of profes...