The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1917-08-04
OUR NURSES IN FRANCE.
Brief News of One of the First Units
What OF Next Winter?
(By Ruth Wright Kaufman of the
Vigilantes)

(By Ruth Wright Kaufman Of the
Vigilantes)
| (Mrs. Kaufman is the Special Cor
respondent Of the Vigilantes in France
and England. She is making a study
there Of the work that women are do
ing, in order to show American wo-
men what they can do to help win the
war;
! Paris. July ITO come upon a
unit of American nurses, quite by ac-
cident, in a quaint Norman village on
the seacoast of France--well, how
would you feel? / wanted to rush up
to them and throw my arms about
them, but. To tell the truth, the
first one met was major, who wore
our simple, but impressive. U. s. r.
uniform. e
They have been in France only two
weeks, and they are one of the six
units lent by our government to the
British government. They are already
hard at work.
Don't think that things are easy
for newcomers no matter how well
come they are. Conditions here are
war conditions. Our unit came equip
ped to take care of five hundred
beds; they have $50. When appli-
ances are strange, when the quarters
are undergoing the moving difficult
ties Of one outgoing set of nurses and
doctors and one incoming set, when
the climate and the food and the peo-
pie and the surgical apparatus and
the manners and customs are new
THAT is the way they do their
washing" said the matron, as we
strolled along the elevation that cor
responds to our board walks, and
looked down at the half mile of hard
sands enclosed between jagged white
cliffs. Sheets and sheets and sheets,
along the whole half mile, fiat upon
the sands, their corners and edges
held down by bits OF stone.
who washes them?" asked.
"Oh. the women Of the village.
Come into the Casino. These are the
men that arrived yesterday. Four
hundred and fifty of them. all at once
Of course. Straight from the front.
Pretty bad cases, a lot of them,
too" .,.
1t was the stillest room in the
world. Together, the matron and /
stood there for some minutes survey
ing the rows of beds, with those me-
chanical contrivances that mean war.
Occasionally hand would move. One
man had guarded his cap and kept it
over his face. But there was no
sound-no sound at all.
If we were fback in New York,
and thirty cases had come into the
accident ward, there would have been
more FUSS" said the matron. II can
hardly understand such courage. They
never whimper, not one Of them."
Nor do the nurses. Though they
are doing double work, those whom
I met took their duties with the good
nature and enthusiasm that one would
only expect from an American con-
tingent. The matron assured me that
no one had grumbled of the almost
overpowering mass of work-and the
orderlies. who at home are not scrub
the-ioor orderlies by any manner of
means-were buckling down to their
tasks quite as if they had been used
to them all their lives. -
"Have you any message to send to
America ?" asked.
"Only this" said the matron.
Train. We need trained nurses
and we Shall need more. But they
must be thoroughly trained"
asked about the unframed nurses,
whether, when they have been work
ing for several years in hospitals-as
some English Red Cross nurses are
even now doing in conjunction with
this American unit-she disapproved
of having their work count toward
trained nursing.
1T is my opinion" she emphatical-
ly said, that when the unframed
nurse has thorough course Of war
nursing, her work should most assur-
edly count in the matter Of a cer-
tificate. I should suggest that she be
allowed to obtain her certificate after,
say, supplementary technical course
of two or three months. We in Amer
lea have not the nursing competition
that exists in England, SO there is no