New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-05-21

Membership in the Red Cross (the fee for
annual membership is 81, nominal sum to
cover the expenses of the course and the price
of the textbook is the entire expense entaied
by those who join the classes in elementary
hygiene and the home care Of the sick.
Invariably these classes create an immense
amount of enthusiasm among the members.
In the administration of home, either in the
city or in the country, their practical value
can scarcely be estimated. 1t would be diff
cult, after such course, not to feel ones
kitchen as ones laboratory; not to have an in
terest in the final disposal of the garbage taken
from il; or not to feel the science in the homely
tasks of cleanliness.
In lesson on bacteria and their relation to
health and disease, for instance, the visit to
hospital laboratory and the examination OF
bacteria under a microscope may be no more
interesting than the demonstration of the right
way to clean domestic filter or the compari-
son between food, in glass jars, that has been
properly sterilized and sealed and that which
has not and therefore moulded.
The causes and transmission Of diseases
come close to the work of every housewife,
when she learns something about the prepare
ton of milk of lime and carbolic acid solution,
for instance, and something of the principles
of sterilization. To know how to care for the
soiled linen used by a patient with conts-
gous disease may be vital piece OF knowl-
edge. And it is just this kind Of information
that the course aims to cover.
Lessons in bedmaking are the most strenu-
Gus and from a strictly nursing standpoint
possibly the most interesting in the course.
They include demonstrations by the students
of making an empty bed and one occupied, of
changing the mattress, with the patient in the
bed, and of lifting the patient from one bed TO
another. Few indeed are the attendants at the
classes who have not practised zealously with
their own bedclothes the trick OF mitred cor
ners, the distinguishing mark of profession
ally made bed.
No more sensible information concerning
the general considerations of the of the
sick in their own homes could be imagined
than that given in the course. The lessons in
simple sickroom appliances and substitutes for
hospital equipment, in making poultices and
congresses, are ones that probably every stu
dent will at some time need to put in practice.
And the instruction has so much to do with the
mental as we'll as the physical comfort OF the
patient, and the sensible and helpful conduct
of the family, that one would not willingly
dispense with it for any consideration.
Women taught and trained under surgeons
and nurses in First Aid may be relied on TO
face an emergency in illness or accident with
a clear head and steady hand.
Like all great movements, this one OF pre-
paredness has place for every one. Every
woman's gift is needed in the great campaign
the Red Cross is waging now. The woman
who nurses, the woman who writes, the woman
who Scrubs the woman who draws, the woman
who makes bandages-each woman is needed
in the work of preparedness. When Red
Cross hospital init is called to action each
helpers place must be filled. And there must
be plenty of reserves
But before that time, and during II, and af
terward, women will be training head and
hand and eye in a modified movement for tho
efficient performance of the simple, vital tasks
of every day.