[Development of nursing science in Germany]

This essay investigates the following two questions: Why did it take so long to become apparent that nursing has an important role in our society? What influenced the growing importance of nursing? Since this essay was part of a habilitation process, it begins with a review of the first German habilitation in nursing in 1895. In retrospect, this document reveals ideas of nursing that are important and still valid today, even though it was written by a physician. However, nursing as a profession practised by nurses or nuns was hidden in the invisible corners of health care and developed as a marginal category. For religious reasons nurses, as women, were encouraged to obey and not think for themselves. Only during the last few decades did nursing acquire a new meaning due to structural changes in morbidity and population, as well as a belated new sense of self-confidence in a profession still predominantly female. Within these new demands, nursing science also gained in significance. Its first substantial ideas came from North America. The difficulties in developing the nursing science lie in the nature of nursing, which often seems to be near omnipotence.