The Press., 1888-08-09
(For The Press.) A GLIMPSE OF WARD LIFE.

The queenly matron and white-capped senior guided me thro' the corridors to the baggage room. thought this was odd enough, but no ''absorbent articles can be left on the wards or rooms for individual occupancy" I had caught sight of several patients, and thought aloud that could never get better amid this coughing, these moans and shrieks and pained faces.
 ''Yes you can, replied the supervising genius, who wore an elaborate frilled cap set upon her brainy head after the style seen in old Philadelphia potraiture. "We can tell at glance when new comer has always been 'poor pussyed. You can used to it''
 t'Yes," echoed the 4th ward Florence Nightengale of the training school, "they all get used to it."
 Here we are amid the trunks, blankets, and hundred etceteras of apparel from the neglige robes of the twenty ty-dollar-a- week patient to the dingy raglets of the pauper. The rooms were frigidly white: Immaculate the hygienic sunbeams stream ed thro' my 10 it., curtainless window, but was luxuriating myself in borrowing trouble. Nobody seemed so sorry as ex- pected they would because was sick-all drudgery, little time for sympathy. Here were IS patients on ward 4-one woman suffering with opthalmia to whom cocaine had been administered, couldn't be left alone. Another case, hemorrhage had en- sued after an operation, the doctors orders must be obeyed. Besides 2 or nurses flying from one charge to the other as fast as their feet can carry them, a senior and new carless girl were hurrying from the dispensary with compress, iodoform, gauge and vasaline to the bed of a young girl, who in rescuing baby had gotten a scolded side. As the burn was superficial they dressed it without sounding the doctors signal, drawing the screen unfolding like clothesframe around the cot. Iris Q play of now you see me and now you don't.
 Another hies her steps to the operating room where the men have just deposited boy upon the table. He is mutilated from shoulder to ankle-an amputation case. By assignment it is this nurses week to witness operations and assist the sur geon, first cleaning the gashes, washing blood from the matted hair, perhaps taking few stitches herself. If there is much prostration she takes novice to help her. In extreme complications the matron sup ervises. An hour later the same nurse, looking slightly discomposed, explained that she had just seen pretty feeble wo- man lose cancerous tumor, adding, 70, I am preparing for as much work as I can possibly crowd into my life before reaching the 10th milestone, for its law of hered- lty that the Mitchells drop off then'''
 These heroines of the hospital, naturally strong physiqued, grow in strength and 1 skill. The tasks develop this, and they are in love with the labor of their adoption. With this bit of pleasantly she glided on to the cot of 8 little Italian, 4 years old, He wasn't born upon the plains of Lom- bardy, but right here in the city. The sur geon had to break his little twisted limbs and rest them, and for weeks he had to be strapped and weighted down. All pitied the patient little fellow and gave him pie ture primers, jumping jacks, etc., he also had the company of children whose dislo- cations were about well. Finally he got to running with his new, straight legs. A sis ter came after him, but he didn't want to go. So he just stood there in the middle of the corridor and yelled, wouldn't budge, but would cling to the apron of the woman 1 who had so long been foster mother. She smiled through her tears, their eyes are not always dry, and in twinkling little Domonick was out of sight. Whether you are black or white, or whether you will or no, the bath Is the salutary medicine, and one of the staff remarked to novlce that ''half the skin disease patients needn t have been there had they kept their skin clean the porous action suppressed the sebaceous glands become affected" Morn ing duties are sweeping, mopping by the hand for general cleaning, dressing the in mush and steak. The diet list is made out nightly by the girl in charge of the dining room. Convalescents go to the table, and also help at dish washing, according to the code of rules. Making the fat bed artistically is a work of 20 minutes, and one had better not let the eye of the female head of the sanitarium discover any slip shod work about it.
 A junior is dropping tonics with @ glass dropper, another is bolstering the patient who has to sleep in an upright position. Now young matronly nurse getting prac- tice in obstetrics waltzes down the corridor holding up dainty pink baby, all in a flannel roll, and just as they all stop moan ing and go to smiling, clang goes the ambulance bell, changing thro' every fiber of the busy force. Early cases are hard ones, and wherever there's an empty cot there the new conner may be anchored. A slow tread, tread {; two policemen are bring ing upon stretcher heavy, red faced fe male, right from street broil. They carry her tenderly, mindful of internal injuries. She was deIirious with drink, and throw ing her arms wildly, calling incoherently. pitifuf sight. They hurry in the wake with an entire supplies closet. Side rails to secure her in bed, queer pieces of frame, work, bandages, auesthetics, etc. There she lies, shrieking during consecutive days and nights, in the the care of one nurse who has begged of the doctor to let