The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1908-05-21
field hospitals before the flaming
brows of Sebastopol. -.


brows of Sebastopol. ~
Thirty-six years ago the first train
ing shool for nurses was established
in Bellview hospital, New York city,
and the course was six months long.
Thirty six years! A comparatively
short time if measured merely by the
figures on the calendar, but an infinite
period il. measured by the multitude
nous and revolutionary changes.
Thirty-six years ago vivid chromos,
the product of TYPOGRAPHY, were i'm
mensely popular. They have now
entirely given place to the really
beautiful Christmas and New Years
cards. Type settlers and compositors
we're not being pushed aside then by
the composing machine.
Men wrote letters by laborious
efforts with pen and ink and did not
then have typewriters, the newspapers
did not publish pictures and the
pictures in the magazines were wood
cuts and not halftones. In the entire
country there were only four establish
ments for making artificial ice, now
there are over 800. The preservation
of food by canning was just beginning
to become a great industry. Num-
bers of persons were then reading
Jules Verne's recently published book
"Twenty Thousand Leagues Under
the Sea-" but navigation under water
was then but a poets dream. It is
now realized in the submarine boat.
The United States navy was then
almost extinct, thanks to some of the
ablest political engineers of destruc-
ton that ever wrought evil deeds.
The PHILIPPINE Islands were known
to but few in this country, and then
only in connection with hemp and
peculiar looking cigars, and the man
did not live who could forecast the
message of progress that Dewey was
to write in iron hail on the battlements
of Manila, and out of which was to
spring that new island empire in the
very portals of the distant sunset.
The United States army numbered but
20, 900 men, some of whom we're used
to carry elections in the southern
states, and some of whom, under Gen.
Miles, we're fighting Chief Joseph and
his Nez Perces in northern Montana.
The streets of our metropolitan cities
were paved with Belgian blocks and
cobble stones, the wizard, Edison, was
at Menlo PARK, deep in perfecting Che
incandescent electric light and the
photograph. The telephone was ex-
hibited at the Centennial exhibition
and was regarded as marvel, but a
toy. Marconi had not yet beckoned the
mystic symbol out of the fogs of the
North Atlantic across 1900 miles of
lonely sea.
There was not genuine trained
nurse in any of the hospitals of Phila-
delphia. Surgery was narrow and
limited compared with what it is
today, and most ignorant persons
were afraid of hospitals-would 20 to
one only in the last extremity, and
then went in deadly terror of the black
bottle and the fatal potion. But year
by year there has been growing con-
tdence in hospitals. Antisepsis has
wrought marvels as mighty as we're
conjured by the seal of Solomon. It
has made possible the surgery of the
brain, the chest and the abdomen. It
has practically abolished the so-called
blood poisoning as sequel to sur
gical operations. It has lessened the
mortality of major amputation from
over so per cent to less than 5 per cent.
Truly the life of DR.. Lister, who
promulgated it, has been greater
boon to the human race than the lives
of hundred military heroes or. a
score OF kings. Pain, hemorrhage,
infection, the three great evils which
had always embittered the practice of
surgery and checked it's progress,
were in quarter of a century robbed
of their terrors-a new era had
dawned.
We, as physicians and surgeons.
would be almost powerless without the
trained nurse in many instances if
we had to battle with disease and
injury without the aid of a we'll
trained, honest, conscientious nurse.
Whatever success may have attained
in my profession am only too will
ing to admit that more than one half
OF it I owe to the hard-working trained
nurses who have assisted me.
You are expected to practice daily
in the most unselfsh manner the
greatest of all virtues, charity,
"charity always spells success, - and
rather than be idle serve the poor.
BE cautious in the administration of