With the purpose of placing modern nursing into focus, in this essay I go over the possible conditions for the emergence of nursing practice systems. Based on texts by Michel Foucault and identified with Cultural Studies, I reclaim fragments from nursing history in order to put back together the organization of its practice system at a given historical moment and in a hospital environment. I tell the story of some of this plot's characters in an effort to show that the past can become the product of the present, once it encompasses historical writings devised and set up by the will of its authors. I highlight modern nursing as a practice of care that becomes professional and builds its own knowledge intent on ensuring professional independence.