Rewriting nursing history

dynamic unconscious, and evolutionary theory's creation of a psychology of adaptation. Leahey has read widely in recent secondary sources; his account therefore stands out as a genuine attempt at synthesis (and is not a rehash of E. G. Boring; e.g., in the account of Wundt's ideas). But though there is reference to social change, the institutional discipline-and certainly explanatory social factors-receive little attention. The significance of the claim that "Wundt's long-term importance for psychology has proven to be institutional" (p. 182) is not followed through. There are errors and misleading generalizations: Hume shows "the first glimmerings of the psychology of adaptation" (p. 113) rather than the preoccupations of the Scottish Enlightenment; Mendel is "an obscure Polish monk" (p. 153); from the fourteenth century "there was a long hiatus during which science did not advance" (p. 76); Spencer's work is minimized by the label "Lamarkian psychology" (p. 246). An antagonism between science and religion remains implicit and linked to progressivist assumptions (most damagingly, David Hartley's theodicy, the context for his association psychology, is not mentioned). It would surely be simpler to refer to "worldview" rather than "The Classical-Medieval-Renaissance Episteme" (p. 82). Such specific points aside, the overall structure around behaviourism is challenging. If indeed psychology can be called "humanity's attempt to understand the self" (p. 2), then much behaviourism hardly qualifies as psychology (Part III notwithstanding). It is said that "[James] Mill expounded his psychology for the purposes of reform. He was not a psychologist" (p. 45). Why should the same not be said about J. (15.95 paperback). This book combines a critical stance towards the writing of history with examinations of neglected areas of nursing history. It does not set out to be a new text, but it does hope to open the field to research. Several of the contributors have been nurses, and they aim to enable nurses to see and investigate their job in new ways. In the first paper, after an introduction on past nursing history by the editor, Christopher Maggs examines the records of four provincial hospitals between 1881 and 1921, and contrasts the account drawn from them of the probationer nurse with the prescriptive account found elsewhere. The interdependence of the two in practice is stressed. This theme is continued in Katherine Williams's paper, in which she discusses nursing and medical views of the history of nursing published for the 1897 jubilee. She relates the …