Nursing

Nursing, care of the sick, injured, or handicapped. Until the 19th century nursing was administered by religious bodies such as the Sisters of Charity (founded in 1634). In 1860 Florence Nightingale opened a school in London to establish nursing as a career. In the United States, nursing schools opened in New York City, Boston and New Haven, Conn., in the 1870s. By the 1980s there were about 1,350 schools of professional nursing in the United States and an estimated 723,000 trained nurses employed. Training includes classroom and hospital experience.