['Thou completeth his work'. On the development of the nursing profession (1880-1925)]

From the very beginning the modernization of the nursing profession, which began in the 1880s, was deeply influenced by leading figures in the medical profession. Liberal-minded doctors initiated the nursing reforms and implemented their ideas in a training and examination system for nurses, in textbooks, in the nursing organization and in the nursing professional journal. In 1921, the nursing education programme was embodied in legislation based on their views. This article focusses on the question as to why nurses did not succeed in developing their own professional image without the assistance of physicians. Even the nurses' pressure group, the union Nosokómos, could not change their subordinate position. The weak social position of the nurse, the 'treachery' of the first generation of prominent matrons and finally the lack of support of the women's rights movement prevented the nurses from modelling the profession according to their own concepts.