A wounded soldier having his foot dressed by a nun, while her assistant holds a bowl of water. Coloured lithograph by C. de Lasteyrie after J.H. Marlet, 1817.

An idealised scene in the recently finished Napoleonic wars, in which a wounded French soldier receives first aid from a member of the nursing order of nuns called the Daughters of Charity. The order was founded in 1633 by Saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) and Saint Louise de Marillac (1591-1660), and was the first order of nuns to work outside the convent. They set up systematic training institutes to teach young women from poor rural France to minister to the sick in hospitals and in the community. It is because Western nursing has its roots in Catholic religious orders that today in England nurses, like nuns, are called "Sister". In 2007 the order registered 21,000 members