Nurses and nursing are firmly rooted in Britain's heritage, for the profession as we know it today owes much to the pioneering work of Florence Nightingale. Before she helped establish the first nurse training school in Liverpool in the late 1800s, the women who looked after the sick were a motley mix. The role of the nurse has developed from the untrained handywoman and private nurse, through the early nurses who acted as 'health missioners', to...