The power of care: the Women’s Hospital 1884–1914 *

The power of care: the Women’s Hospital 1884–1914 The effectiveness of late‐nineteenth‐century nursing care should not be underestimated. The archive of patient records at Melbourne’s Women’s Hospital reveals a commitment to patient care that more often than not made the difference between life and death in the recovery from major surgery or post‐partum infection. These records suggest the need to reassess the role of medical care in the mortality transition after 1850.