The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-05-14

A recentt writer has interesting
things to say of life in a hospital as he
had found it. From this my memory
turns backward
A young woman, worn by over-Work
and continued i'll health, strained by
the pressure of her own restlessness
and desire to accomplish her share OF
the worlds work, is advised to go to
Johns Hopkins, the greatest beneflcenl
institution on the Western Continent.
There's the dread of the knife, the
thought of strangers and their posi-
bic GOODNESS. the fear of protracted
helplessness in the power of the ma
chine,-but over against that is the
hope of relief, of freedom from the
long, long days of suffering and the
longer nights of sleeplessness.
All those nights when one is not in
pain, when you can not put your
hand on any one nerve and feel that
the trouble lies here. or that ease there
will bring that blessed sleep which
"knits up the raveled sleeve of care.
TO lie hour after hour. with mind fly
ing through wide spaces of thought,
tense, alert but fully conscious that
this is unhealth, that the morrow will
bring uuivering nerve on which every
Earring sound or unlovely sight will
play as discordantly as does the bow
on the untuned instrument.
To have ease from all this she would
go, alone as seemed best for moneys
sake, and try conclusions there among
strangers. A friend-one as true as
steel-makes things comfortable for
the traveller at the beginning of the
journey. The berth made down, and
the occupant furnished with a dainty
luncheon from the home of the friend,
the trip is begun in comfort. What
thoughts flied the mind of the in
valid as the train sped northward. 1t
would be amiSs to tell.
1t was near midnight when the
train pulled into the city of Baltimore.
what a thing friendship is, world
without end" The same true one had.
unknown to the invalid. telegraphed to
DIR. Hurd to have some one meet that
incoming train.
There was a carriage with pillows
and thoughtful attendant ready to
adjust those pillows with view to
the greatest possible comfort. Already
are there indications that the hospital
is not simply a machine but that some
where in the administration there ista
great throbbing heart.
'You at least do not demand good
looks from your patients, do you?" in
quired the invalid the next day. There's
Miss E., the night nurse. an ex-
ceedingly handsome girl; the night
superintendent of nurses is pretty
woman: the head nurse in Ward b is
beautiful; the resident physician has
the ideal Greek face; DR.. Kelly's is a
face which denotes the highest type
of personal attractiveness. You know
it when you see it. and yet you will
hardly be able to describe it-there
is a something about it quite indie
scribable. 1t is hard to give one an
idea of the mere physical look of q
man or woman. To say that the eyes
are of a certain color. the face of a
given contour. is but to leave the
faintest trace from which the fancy
may finish a doubtful picture. but
when it comes to an attempted de-
scription of spiritual qualities glowing
i'm a face. Illuminating 1t with a divine
light-one is altogether helpless
though his vocabulary were ever so
perfect.
You are drawn toward DR.. Kelly by
this quality which animates every
movement and gives weight to every
word. You are sure. before you hear
the many beautiful things said of him
by nurse and patient. that here is a
man TILED through and through with
broad, human sympathy which SO well
becomes his i,rofession.
You are not surprised to learn that
this great man, Napoleonic in the field
of surgery, is a Christian of the truest
type, simple in his faith, ever ready
to kneel i'm prayer when preparing for
the work of the knife. To don the
surgeons linen, then meet his Maker
in earnest faith and rise Gained and
strengthened for the delicate, nerve
feel safer under the eye thus cleared,
the hand thus steadied?
"Fanatlcism.' you say? Not a bit
of it. Try it yourself. Face death by
the knife. Let two men stand before
you prepared to operate. Know that
one comes trusting in his own skill
alone, that life's worries have no
counterpoise for him save in himself.
while the other of equal skill and
daring, has his heart set deep in a
source of unspeakable calm. Let that
source be. to you. a fancied one. it is
still valuable for its phychic effect on
the surgeon, and thence some of its
power would reach you. The chances
are that the merdst scoffer would pre-
fer the Christian unless the spirit of
bravado DULLES him into choosing the
other.
Says the head nurse: "Take these
two wards in DIR. Kelly's charge. and
you find that the death record is
smaller there than in any hospital the
world over This is the more re-
markable because we take hopeless