Mary A. Boland

Mary A. Boland was an American nurse and writer born in 1852. She is best known for A Handbook of Invalid Cooking, first published in 1893, a book created for nurses in training, private-duty nurses, and anyone caring for sick patients.

The book presents food preparation as part of good nursing, mixing short lessons on the value of different foods with recipes meant for people who were ill or recovering. Contemporary editions identify her as an instructor in cooking in the Johns Hopkins Hospital Training-School for Nurses, and library records also connect her name with later editions of the work.

Not much biographical detail is easy to confirm, but the surviving record shows a writer closely associated with nursing education and diet for the sick in the 1890s. Her work remains of interest today as a window into the history of nursing, home care, and medical nutrition.