The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-08-18
The Church and Nursing
CHURCH ALWAYS ACTIVE IN
CARING FOR THE SICK IN THE
UNITED STATES.

oNI ED y u
The world-war while focusing the
attention of the masses upon the
activities of the great armies has also
brought into prominence the more
merciful and benignant career of the
nurse. 1t will be of timely interest
therefore to hear facts unfamiliar to
the majority of our people concerning
the history and development Of nurs-
ing in our country.
Here again we can turn with iustifi-
able satisfaction to the pages or re-
Gently published book by a non-Cath-
olic and read from the pen of an out
slider remarkable tribute to the
work which the Church has accom-
plished in this field of work. In the
book, History of Health Nursing
by Mary Sewall Gardner, R. N, we
are told that 'in America as in Eng
land, the sick have been cared for by
Nuns and Sisters, both in and out of
hospitals, since the earliest settlement
days. One cannot read of the hard
ships SO heroically endured by the
Sisters, in their effort to nurse the
Indians in Canada in the first half of
the 18th century, without thrills of
admiration, and at an even earlier
date Spanish Nuns were at work in
the hospitals of Mexico"
Herein our author but corroborates
the testimony of Chas. +. Loomis,
who records in his "The Awakening
of a Nation that royal hospital for
Indians was founded in Mexico in
1858, that in the great epidemic of
1862, this same hospital cared for
1862 persons; that besides this there
were many of other hospitals founded
in various parts of Mexico before our
own country was anything more than
a very primitive colonial settlement
Summing up their work Loomis ex.
claims: mo other nation Ethan
SPAIN has founded so extensively
such benefcences in it's colonies, and
few colonies have built so we'll upon
their inheritance" ''We may pick
flaws in these institutions as admin.
istered while we were hanging
witches, but the institutions were
there and are there yet"
Miss Gardner in turn bears out
Loomis in this, his last assertion
when she states that: "The Pilgrim
fathers and mothers were made OF
different material, and came to the
new world for other reasons than
those which brought their French and
Spanish neighbors. They came to
make for themselves homes, and their
religion took little heed of the Indian
or the state of his soul Among the
early Canadian settlers on the other
hand were Jesuit priests, who came
for the sole purpose of converting the
savages and saw in the nursing skill
of the Sisters an important means to
that end"
Even so important a settlement as
Montreal was intended primarily, not
so much as a center of trade as a
gathering point for the activities OF
faith and mercy. For as our author
continues, Montreal came into exist
ence as a mission consisting of three
communities, one of priests to manage
the affairs of the colony, one of nuns
to teach the faith to the children, and
one of Sisters to nurse the sick; and
all this arranged in obedience to what
was believed to be a direct revelation
of God, before there was any colony
to manage, any children to teach, OF
any sick to nurse"
What a glaring contrast to this pic
ture of devotion to the Catholic ideal
of charity and mercy and for that mat
ter to Catholic efficiency is that offer
ed to us when we are told in the same
chapter of the development of nurs
ing in New England. 'The newly es
tablished communities in the English
colonies, however, were not long with
out their sick, and as the little vii
lagos grew, provision was made in
hospitals. The first, Blockley in Phil
adelphia and Bellevue in New York
were started as what we would now
call poor-houses, and dreadful indeed
was their nursing history. No tales
of the cruel neglect of English aims
house nursing of the same period car
exceed those that can be told of these
two hospitals. Lurid pictures come
down to us of drunken attendants
fighting like furies over the beds O.
their patients, or lying in sodden un
consciousness beside the bodies of thu
dead"
Thus we see that in this so i'm
portant field Of charity the Church hal
record splendid indeed. 1t need bu
be known to command the reverence
and gratitude of all truly interested
in the welfare of institutions whicl
make for the betterment and enoble
ment of our race.