Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1905-05-09

gravity If it can be solved at all i!
must be by the mining engineers. They
and they alone are competent to rec
ommend what legislation is necessary
and upon them devolves the duty of
| perfecting the necessary safety appli
ances of recommending the proper
| legislation and then in securing the
enforcement of whatever laws are en-.
acted. They are body of men of a
high order of intelligence, and if legis-
lators will listen to their counsel the
slaughter of miners will be reduced to
the minimum
Another national gathering that has
held the attention of the public dur
ing the week was that of the nurses.
Carnegie has endowed half a thousand
libraries and Rockefeller has given
millions to colleges and other philan-
thropists have erected hospitals. Hos
pitfalls without trained nurses would &C
complish little, and the wonder is that
some great minded American multi
millionaire, has not, long before this,
supplemented the hospitals by endow-
ing college for the training Of nurses.
we have colleges for physicians and
colleges for lawyers There are many
who might think that the country
could get along very we'll without this
last. But there is no regularly en-
doWed college for nurses, yet nurses
are something more than the right
hand OF the physician The trained
nurse is physician, nurse and sympa-
thizing friend combined.
ino1 ro1@ L.
tude is the charge laid at the door of
the war department by the convention
OF nurses. AS the compliments in this
case consist of women, thoroughly or
ganlzed, and aggressive, the prob
ability is that the war de-
partment will be compelled to over
haul The military records of the Span
lsh war. 1t is matter for wonder
ment by those unacquainted with the
extent to which red tape can prevent
the accomplishment of results in the
various government departm that
patriotic women, less than seven years
ago, could have offered their services
as nurses, these services be accepted
and the women die while on duty. with
out there being an official record of
the fact. Still. such a condition of af-
fairs does exist.
In looking up the records in order
to properly mark the monument to the
women who died as army nurses in
1898, and unveiled this week at Airing
ton, it was discovered that not even
casual record has been kept of those
noble volunteer women who did such
patriotic work. Only the contract
nurses appear in the files of the war
department. Although there has been
constant'clamor by the women of the
country for information about all the
nurses, the department has made no
effort to locate the volunteers The
monument is, therefore, very meagerly
marked, though it is intended to i'm
mortalize all. whether contract or vol
unteer nurses.
A letter received from the head of
the Charity hospital in New Orleans,
an institution conducted by the Roman
Catholic Sisters Of Charity, has at
tracted much attention. Seven mem
bers of the order were volunteers in
the camps at Jacksonville, Tampa and
Chicamaugua, and all were victims of
fever. When informat ton was sought
regarding their death, it was found
that no account of their services or
death was kept. They therefore APP
pear simply as Sisters of Charity, who
died doing nurses duty. Five other
Sisters of Charity from Emmettsburg,
Maryland, were in the service as con.
tract nurses and a full account of their
labors and death is in the archives of
the department.
Two other very important meetings
are soon to be held in Washington.
One is the meeting of the National
Association for the Prevention of Tu-
berculosis, and the other a meeting of
state and city health officers, called by
Surgeon General Wyman of the United
States Marine Hospital service The
discussions of this meeting will take
wide range, covering almost every
matter pertaining to the protection of
the public health. One of the import
ant matters that is to be discussed is
that of pure food and drink, and what
legislation is necessary to protect the
public against impure foods and adul-
terated drinks.
William Wolf Smith.