Who the Dickens Brought Sarai Gamp to Canada?

Authors

  • Joyce M. MacQueen

Abstract

In 1843, in his novel Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens created a character named Sarai Gamp, a nurse - elderly, uncaring, alcoholic. Most nursing students in Canada learn about Sarai Gamp and the dark period of nursing in England; the tendency is to assume that our nursing history mirrors that of England. Early Canadian nurses have been described as Sarai Gamps. But is it fair to tar early Canadian nurses with this brush? The purpose of this paper is to compare conditions in mid-nineteenth century Britain and Canada and to determine how and why Canadian nursing history differs from that of Britain. Review of the Literature Indeed, the historical accounts of two early Canadian Hospitals, the Kingston General Hospital (Angus, 1973) and the Montreal General Hospital (MacDermot, 1940), contain references to their early nurses as Sarai Gamps.

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Published

1989-04-13

Issue

Section

Articles