Nursing in Pneumonia.

: Editor's note: From its first issue in 1900 through to the present day, AJN has unparalleled archives detailing nurses' work and lives over 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 highlights articles selected to fit today's topics and times.In the September 1903 issue of AJN, Jessie E. Catton of Boston City Hospital writes about the nursing care of pneumonia. Many early AJN authors were national figures, and Catton was no exception: she later became secretary of the National League for Nursing Education, a forerunner of the National League for Nursing.Catton notes that in pneumonia, "if no complications occur nursing is considered rather more important than treatment." She goes on to discuss key principles in caring for someone with pneumonia: "absolute rest in bed" to prevent exhaustion; "perfect cleanliness… warmth, light covering, and… fresh air"; careful positioning in bed; and proper treatment of high fever, where "the external use of cold is preferred by many physicians rather than large doses of antipyretic drugs." To read the full article, go to http://links.lww.com/AJN/A129.In this month's issue, Chastity Warren and colleagues describe their project to prevent pneumonia via the use of standardized oral protocols for high-risk patients in "A Nurse-Driven Oral Care Protocol to Reduce Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia."