The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-08-25
j BROOKLYN Eagle.

many bloody battlefelds, and the most
famous nurse in the world, has Just GEL
ebrated her eighty fifth birthday. Old
as she is, she has an intense longing
| TO go to Manchuria and take part in
| the Red Cross work there.
years ago while she WAS gaining =, q
worldwide fame, are roaring still.
/ When she witnessed the fall Of Sebas-
| tOpol, half a century ago, she little
! thought she would live to see the cars
empire engaged in another great war.
terest in the struggle in the far east.
She watches every development there
and is close student of the methods
| of the Red Cross. She sees much IN
the way Of improvement since the day
when she started out with her band OF
heroic nurses to tend wounded and help
the dying in the Crimean war.
The queen Of nurses lives now in
quiet little house in London, the house
i that has been her home for forty years.
She is beautiful old lady, and it seems
almost wrong to call her old, SO smooth
in her white brow and so few the-Wrln-
kles that have come to furroW her.
placid face.
This woman. the pioneer Of battlefield
nurses. loves to have visits from nurses -
in the old uniform she knows 50 well.
She begs them all to come attired IN the
nursing uniform.
1 It is natural that in the evening Of
life Miss Nightingale 8 mind turns from
the battlefield to home nursing. Not
long ago she expressed the peculiar in
! terest which she felt in the progress OF
district nursing. No class Of work ap-.
peals to her more strongly. 1t was IN
the homes Of the poor that some OF her
earliest efforts in sick nursing We're
made, when as a young woman OF le els
rre she visited the cottagers on her
fathers estates in Derbyshire and
serswerth, too, where she graduated as
a nurse, her attention was chiefly di-
rected toward the care of the sick poor,
Her earliest writings dealt with the
same theme. The appalling condition Of
the wounded in the hospitals OF the east
to the care of the soldier, and for many
years afterward she made military hos
pitfalls her chief concern. But now she
turns again to her earlier work, and the
sick, poor are in these later years much
on her mind.
Miss Nightingale, looking upon. the
"home" as the great unit Of the ma
tion, feels that the chief need OF the
age is the intelligently managed, pure,
clean home in which the men and
women Of the future may be- reared,
and regards the district nurse as an
important factor in bringing about this
condition. The district nurse meets
? the family on their own ground, shows
them in their own home how they can
! in nursing their sick ones, the way to
= obtain official sanitary help, how to
improvise appliances, and often how to
tide over difficulties and prevent their
home being broken up. To use one of
: Miss Nightingale expressive phrases,
the district nurse can teach without
seeming to teach, which is the ideal OF
erection Of model municipal dwellings
J, for the poor, Miss Nightingale invaria-
I bly, inquiries what effect they have on
y the habitsnof the people. : She urges
:, that the district nurse may be the
!, medium for teaching the disorderly how
to use improved dwellings. an important
: factor in, the struggle with what she
oa In the pau eparl7 stages 81 her career,
: Miss Nightingale laid great. stress ON
) the maxim that a '"Nurse is born and
not made,'' and she has never finched
from that position. She holds that Of
all occupations, nursing least lends itself
to formula, = as it deals with liv.
ing bodies and spirits, and cannot be
formulated like engineering, or mum.
: bered and registered like arithmetic
| and population. It must be sYmpa
: thetic.'' The nurses art cannot <be
> made formula any more than the
r painters. "When the great painter
3 Fuseli," as Miss Nightingale has in
' stanced, "was examined as to- how he
8 mixed his colors, he replied, Z With
: brains, sir, and the good nurse, if she
! is asked how she nurses can often only
answer: with brains and heart. sir
and with training and practice.
Miss Nightingale IS view Of the matte
characteristic examples. grea
j physician was heard to say. when asket
how he treated pneumonia, don
: treat pneumonia, treat the person VIII
has pneumonia If this is true il
medicine, in which there is much tina
can be tested by examinations, how
! much more true is it of incidence serv
ant nursing9 Training-silent thin,
years of training, moral and sympa
thetic, as well as physical; training il
tact and sympathy; conduct training /
necessary. and progress in training cal
never end but with a nurses life. (
good nurse must be-a good woman wit
u sympathetic insight. She cannot be
good nurse without. -
Miss Nightingale has always feare'
: a danger that the office of nurse may b
marcation between nurses and the medi
cal faculty is lost. To use her ow7
! terse phrase, "a nurse should be
4 nurse, not medical woman, = and an
u test Of study which loses sight Of thi
seems antagonistic to her conception, o
; a nurse IS vocation. ssThis most import
! ant practical lesson that can be give
81 Ito nurses saws Miss Nightingale, 81
! to teach them what to OBSERVE how t