Forcible feeding in English prisons. 1910

Editor's note: From its first issue in 1900 through to the present day, AJN has unparalleled archives detailing nurses' work and lives for more than a century. These articles not only chronicle nursing's growth as a profession within the context of the events of the day, but they also reveal prevailing societal attitudes about women, health care, and human rights. Today's nursing school curricula rarely include nursing's history, but it's a history worth knowing. To this end, From the AJN Archives will be a frequent column, containing articles selected to fit today's topics and times. This month's article, from the March 1910 issue, addresses the force-feeding of female political prisoners in Great Britain. It was written by nurse and social activist Lavinia Dock, a cofounder of the Nurses Associated Alumnae (which later became the American Nurses Association) and the International Council of Nurses and a contributing editor to AJN. Dock wrote, "Among the prisoners thus cruelly treated have been several nurses." She shared physicians' outrage that the Home Office ordered the force-feeding but tried to place responsibility for the practice entirely on prison physicians. More than a century later, the force-feeding of political prisoners continues to raise ethical and legal issues within the nursing and medical communities (see "Ethical Issues for Nurses in Force-Feeding Guantánamo Bay Detainees" in this issue).