The Prescott daily news., 1907-06-01

n"hy, "HeIe one or the earlier stu dents of the art was Florence Night ingale. Like untold thousands of women before her, she went forth to the great battle with death in the hospitals, taking with her to the Crimea 3S women, of whom IS were sisters of catholic or protestant or. ders. Other nurses joined her later. This war gave great stimulus to the idea of training nurses, and it ultimately led to the introduction into the British army of regular corps of women nurses. These sisters" as they are called, are of course grad uates of hospital training schools and their work consists essentially in the supervision of the nursing in large hospitals where the details are car ried out by men enlisted for the pur- pose. In some respects the English system Is well organized, as the rules are explicit regarding increase of pay with length of service, with provision Tor retirement and pensions. The most important post in this service is that of woman superintendent of Netley hospital, there being no woman at the head of all the nurses There exists also an independent Indian nursing service of secular sisters
 At the outbreak of the South African war the number of English sisters was fixed at 79, of whom 63 were employed in the British isles and 16 at Gibraltar, Malta and Egypt. In addition to this small number pro- vided for peace times there was . corps of reserve sisters, although ap- pointments to it were unfortunately not under the control of the war of flee. As the nursing sisters of the reserves numbered only 93, hasty ap- pointments were made, and some women who were entirely without knowledge of a nurses duties sue ceeded in obtaining appointments. Of course the trained nurses who were sent to the Transvaal worked nobly and well, though the investiga- tion of army hospitals has shown a most distressing insufficfency in their number.
 The United States is looked to as country whose system of women nurses may, in many respects, be used as an example.
 Our nurse corps is matter of quite recent growth There were, of course, large number of women employed during the civil war. most of them ap- pointed by Miss Dorothea Lynde Dix, who was then superintendent of women nurses, but their services, as we'll as the work of the helpers who held no regular positions, came to an end at the close of the war. A vast amount of good was done by these women individually, but there was no lasting effect on the army itself
 In 1887 congress authorized the en- listment of men in what is named the hospital corps for the purpose of serving as nurses and attendants in army hospitals and camps and on the field of battle. This corps is com posed of privates, who are the prac- tical equivalents of undergraduate nurses in the civil hospitals and of stewards and acting stewards, who are virtually graduate nurses. At the outbreak of the Spanish war there were 723 men in the hospital corps, a number barely adequate for an army of 25,000 men in time of peace, but. of course, wholly inadequate in time of war for an army 10 times that size. Although effort was made to supply the deficiency as far as practicable by transfers of men from the regiments. there arose in the summer of 1898 a great need for trained nurses to care for the vast number of seriously sick men. As nursing has always been essentially womans work it became necessary to send great numbers of women to our army camps and hospi- tals.
 Had such an emergency arisen in a continental country it's government would have called upon those aid so- cieties which had organized and equipped themselves for such work and which were officially recognized by being placed under the control of government officer. Some of these organizations abroad are religious in character and some of the others are allied with the International Commit tee for the Relief of Wounded in War. which meets at Berne. Switzerland. and which committee is here com monly, but erroneously. spoken of as an international Red Cross society. In time of war these various official aid societies are told where their help will be expected and among other