The Republican journal., 1898-06-02
Army and Navy Nurses.

IT'S IOOlS VI ILLS dUOuuu Ill
every direction. Even dumb creatures re-
ceive their full share of help and sympa-
thy. Yet a great deal more might be
done to ameliorate human suffering
through better organization of the means
at hand. This is emphatically the case as
regards the nursing of the sick and wound
ed in time of war, for this is more or less
left to chance. We rely on volunteers,
who may be few OF many, fit or unfit, but
who, because they are women, are sup
posed to be naturally capable of caring
for the sick and wounded. Florence
Nightingale, however, whose experience
was second to none, writes:
at has been said and written scores of
times that every woman makes a good
nurse. l believe, on the contrary, that
the very elements of nursing are all but
unknown" Again she says;
1T seems a commonly received idea
among men, and even among women
themselves, that it requires nothing but a
disappointment in love, the want of an OBJ
Ject, a general disgust or incapacity for
other things to turn woman into good
nurse.
This reminds one of the parish where a
stupid Old man was set TO be schoo}mas-
ter because he was ''past keeping the
pigs.
The international Conference at Berlin,
1869, which was attended by one hundred
and sixty-two delegates. representing al
most every State in Europe, passed TWEEN
ty-six resolutions, of which three were as
follows:
80 1t is necessary for the vigorous
development of Societies, and as a good
preparation for their action in time of
war, to furnish aid and help in calamities
which may happen in time of peace.
20 Societies of Help should, there
fore in time of peace employ themselves
in works of humanity corresponding to
their duties in time of war, viz. in tend
inc the sick, and in giving assistance dur
ing public calamities which require, as
war does, prompt and well-o organized
help.
u. They should also make prepare
tions fol the creation of such military
hospitals DIS they wish to establish or to
work in time of war hospitals of reserve
These preparations would include the
choice oi locality, OF the material, and adj
ministration.'
No pen can depict the sufferings of the
sick and wounded in time of war, even
under the most favourable conditions. AT
the beginning and during the first half of
this century, every battle field was an in
deseribable scene of horrors. Napoleon
lost more brave men by shameless neglect
Of wounds and sickness than by the sword
ana fire of the enemy.
One OF his surgeons. writing to Marshal
Dmoc, said. ''During the siege of
Dantzic, where he had sixteen hundred
wounded and two hundred sick, we had
not a single straw mattress, no basins, no
nurses, in fact, there was nothing! When
however, nurses were obtained they were
always men, whose services were secured
by fear of punishment, and who did not
disdain to practice extortion on the sick
and to rob the dying as well as well as the
dead
in Spain says General Foy, 1.-THE
wounded were often abandoned for want
of means OF transport: congueTers or
men through the disorder inseparable from
our system OF war, nan by the fire ard
sword Of the enemy
1t was much the same at Waterloo. and
at every period, and amongst all ma
tions from Cyrus down to Napoleon Ill
Miss Nightingale says, that from the 9th
of Mag ID the 18th Of July, 1865, ninety
six per cent Of the deaths from sickness
in the English Army in the Crimea,
might certainly have been prevented, and
it is wei known tina the hospital and
barrack reforms int oduced by this most
excellent lady reduced the losses by one
half
The care of the wounded on the feel d
must always most largely dev olive upon
men. The care of the sick and wounded
in the hospital should be chiefly the work
of women. The presence of the latter
has asoothing, salutary, and great moral
influence over men, besides which, under
proper training, women always prove the
better nurses. AS has been well remarked
''Murderous refnements of war should
have correlative refnements of mercy, "
or as Achard says: cit is incumbent up
on us to raise the science which consoles
and heals to level with the science that
destroys" The need of this was the orr
gin of the Geneva Convention, and of the
numerous volunteer societies for the nit
igation of human suffering in war which
have since arisen throughout Europe. The
value of those auxiliary aids is not to be
questioned, especially when the volun-
teers can be relied upon. We feel, how
ever, that it would not be wise for the
State in future to depend solely upon