Working conditions and duties of nurses in Byzantium

From the beginning of the Christian Era, nurses in Byzantium were female and belonged to the Church. These women were called deaconesses and received no payment. Later on, there were professional nurses; the men were called hypourgoi and the women hypourgisses. Their main duties were: Psychological support of patients, everyday care of patients' bodily needs and elementary comfort, cleaning of patients and providing them with proper food, the administration of medicines according to a doctor's instructions, supervising wards when the physicians were not present, the performance of enemas, cuppings and bloodletting, the main therapeutic means used at that time, the placing of patients on the operating table and the performance of minor operations. In the present study details are also given about woking hours and the nourishment and payment of nurses.