The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-12-09
DIR. ANITA NBwcoMB M'GEE.
Her Work in Getting Women Into the Army and Navy Medical Corps,


 the Army and Navy Medical Corps.
 The average woman and the exceptional man prove themselves good nurses. All I the centuries gone by have demonstrated l that in civil life nursing the sick and in- jured is a vocation for which woman is peculiarly fitted. After opposition enough to kill or drive insane an ordinary person, Florence Nightingale In England. Mother Bickerdyke and a few other dauntless, noble women in America during the civil war proved it also true in military life in the nineteenth century. It has re- mained for the radiant twentieth century to show that trained women nurses are as useful in the navy as in the army. Secretary of the Navy Moody favors the innovation and Surgeon General Rixey recommends It. Lastly, Lieutenant Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee is emphatlcally for 1t.
 For every woman nurse that can be ern- ployed in the army and navy, one man can be spared for active sea and land fighting duty, and this Is a consideration having due weight. Navy regulations for bid that women be allowed on war ves- sells, so the feminine navy nurse will be reiegated to the shore hospitals of our marine arm. But every sick and wound ed naval seaman Is put Into hospital as soon as he can be taken there. The wo- men will have employment. The army has already 100 regular women nurses. The scheme for the navy contemplates the appointment at first of fifty with pay of S100 laa amonth. The ladies will have to pass a most rigid examination as to physical, moral and professional fitness, as is quite proper. They will. like the army nurses, have a suitable uniform, and
 
 United States Navy Is equipped and reg ularly on duty it will be the first one of I its kind in the world, for which this re- public may take to itself due credit Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee of Wash ington, indorses heartily the appointment of women navy nurses. She says: "Wo- men are the best nurses-better than men in the majority of cases can ever hope to be-" The word of Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee is to be accepted as authority, for to Dr. McGee herself the new woman may give thanks in no small measure that this new step upward and forward has been made possible Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee. wife. mother model housekeeper, practicing physician mathematician and scientist showed with her corps of army nurses fin the Spanish American contest that woman can serve her country in war as effectively as man.
 At the outbreak or the war m Cupd pr. McCiee an officer of the D. A. R., organized among that body of patriotic women hospital corps of trained nurses and offered it's and her own services to the Government. There was al the time a tremendous pressure on the United States Surgeon General from all quarters of the Union from women who begged to be army nurses. Finally he turned the whole matter over to the D. A. R. Dr. McGee was surgeon general of that or ganization. She was at length permitted to recomS Send certain number of qual-
 flied women nurses for appointment in the regular army In the course of her work in this department she personally examined l 500 applicants.
 Finally in August. 1898. President Me Kinley d friend of the new woman, ap- pointed pr. Anita Newcomb McGee a reg ular acting assistant United States Army'I Surgeon, with the usual pay and emol- uments This was done to set the neces- sary seal of authority on her acts. The intrepid lady had throughout the co-bp- eration and support of the medical staff of the army, Surgeon General Sternberg at its head She was to have the au thorita tive direction of the regular army women nurses One of her first acts was to dispatch thirty of these to Porto Rico, Later a number of both regular and Red Cross women nurses went to the Philip pines Generally they were on duty in the reserve hospitals to which the sick and wounded are taken for care. but now and then a woman nurse has done actual 1 service and brave service in d field hos pital. with bullets whistling around her.
 Dr. McGee immediately after her ap- pointment procured a suitable uniform | for her rank of first lieutenant in the army medical corps Ii is to her credit | as woman that she took pride and pleasure in wearing this uniform and in having 1t made becoming as possible. l This while not in the slightest neglect l ing the weightier matters of the law. She wore d blouse. cap and skirt of army blue. The skirt had the green stripes of the hospital corps down the sides, while the collar of her blouse bore the gold cross of the medical staff officers.
 Nobly she wrought for the sick and suffering soldiers. Her soul was fixed on having trained women nurses to care for them not only in the Cuban war, but in all wars to come. There must be official authorization for this. Dr. McGee, with her own hand, drafted a blll which was laid before Congress, to provide for corps of women nurses henceforth. Con gross passed the bill promptly, President Mckinley. as ever the new womans friend. signed il. and 1t became law The brilliant author of it directed the policy and action of the army women nurses corps till the close of the Spanish-Amer- ican war then quietly resigned and Lieu tenant Anita Newcomb McGee. the first W oman that ever received d commission in the United States army stepped mod estly back in civil life and took up again her special medical practice of gynecol- ogy If during her official medical mil- tary career she had shown herself in .the least degree ignorant or vain or silly or womanishly "inikin." if she had made a single blunder. she would have given the cause of women trained nurses in the army setback from which 1t would have required generation to recover. But she never did.
 She made no mistakes, because all her life she had been preparing for the op-