Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-07-29

! A TURsING as profession Is barely oO
IN years old an interesting fact TO re-
call Just at this time. when stories oil
heroic devotion to the wounded py tne
gentle whlte-capped women in the nos
pitfalls throughout the war zones are peihs
told in many American periodicals.
Efficiency has become the slogan OF the
profession, and another step In TINS
direction is contemplated in the proposed
aflliatlon OF training schools for nurses
which will be the main question discussed
at the meeting of the Pennsylvania state
Association for Graduate Nurses, to be
held in November Such an afiiliation
would cause to be embraced In the course
more general study of diseases.
A statement to this effect was made by
Miss Roberta West, chief nurse at the
Philadelphia Hospital for Contagious Dis
eases Miss West said;
THE profession needs more good mater
ial women who enter not because 1t is
the only thing they can do. but because
they have n desire to become ehcient
trained nurses.
Nursing as a profession is barely so
years old and TO Philadelphia belongs a
great deal of credit i'm its development.
In 1884 the Philadelphia General Hospital
(Blockley) was in such a deplorable con-
dtion as regards order, cleanliness and
nursing that the board of trustees knew
tho time had come when something must
be done. 1t was said of the place at that
time that it were better to put patients
in the street than admit them to the hos
pital The nursing, such as 1t was, was
done entirely by convalescents or other
equally unfit persons, who were not only
ignorant but in many instances brutal.
1.-THE late George w. Childs, then
owner and publisher of the PUBLIC
LEDGER, conceived the idea that Blockley
might be lifted from It's depths by plac-
ing at its head some competent person
with knowledge of nursing, who might
understand how to bring order out OF
chaos. A search was instituted and Miss
Alice Fisher, an Englshwoman of high
birth and breeding, possessing rare skill
In her profession, and pupil OF FLOR
ence Nightingale, was appointed chief
nurse.
Resting on her shoulders was the
whole responsibility of regenerating
Blockley' A training school for nurses
was established. the only training school
for nurses in this part of the country,
with the exception of those of the
Woman's Hospital and the Philadelphia
Lying-In Hospital. This splendidly or
ganlzed body of women, under the able
instruction and personal magnetism Of
their chief brought Blockley from the
depths and raised it to the level of other
institutions of enviable reputation.
Graduates from Blockley accepted posi-
tions in other hospitals. inaugurating
training schools and teaching with
marked success the principles which Miss
Fisher had inculcated."
Miss West was closely associated with
Miss Fisher, having graduated in her first
class of nurses and being one of her sue
cessors at her death. in 1885.
This profession as girl never ap-
pealed to me-" added Miss West In an
swer to a question of how she came to
take up nursing "I was a tomboy" and
she smiled in retrospection. "Horses and
dogs and cats and the things that boys
enjoyed doing were my especial delight.
The sight of blood was particularly dis
tasteful to me. Suddenly it occurred to
me that this was not womanly and be-
gan asking my mother how to make
poultices. Later on 1 decided to study
nursing, and as Miss Fisher had just