The author of an 1871 essay, published in the popular British periodical Once a Week and entitled “Bachelor Invalids and Male Nurses,” summarizes his three-fold purpose in writing:

The set of aims he describes — to mitigate anxiety, to divert compassion from useless channels, and to entertain — might well describe the charge of the nineteenth-century sick-nurse. The male writer of this essay claims that he does not believe that men make better nurses than women: “Far be it from me to underrate the merits of female nurses, or to depreciate the fortitude, patience, and devotion with which thousands upon thousands of them are continually sacrificing time, rest, and health in tending sufferers. My aim is to show that men can, at a humble distance, follow their example” (p. 318).