The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1918-06-30
BLUE GOWN" ARE
ANGELS0F MERCY IN
THEARMYHOSP|TALS

Washington, June So Teachers,
nurses and healers, too. are the blue
gowns of the army medical corps, at
work now in the hospitals of the
United States and over there
Reconstruction aides is their official
name, but the CHEEKY blue of their dis
tinctive uniform has already won a
handler name for the special corps
Of 10 women whose membership treats
and teaches among the MANNED SOL
diers brought back from the battle
front. Theirs is the work of coaxing
back the wasted muscles and disused
limbs of wounded men, and later by
patient tutoring instilling dizziness in
new arts and vocations which the hos
pital schools are planning for the re-
turned soldier.
Most of the blue gowns" We're re-
cruited from the instruction staffs of
manual training schools and civilian
hospitals, whose experienced workers
were found availabl
Beside a table a young fellow n
uniform was carving a conventional
flower border on a wooden picture
frame" says an official description of
their work. THE design was his own
and the work was his first piece. He
was inclined to be clumsy because he
was using his left hand. A blue gown
was ready to guide and advise him.
The use of this mans right hand had
been permanently lost, it was thought
b. him a one time that he was handi-
capped for life as a money Garner
because his successful profession had
been that of a mechanical craftsman.
So it is that he is wood carving. not
as a possible vocation, but to train his
ID
becoming nimble by slow degrees but
his mind is at the same time occupied.
As he becomes adept in left handed
carving, he is preparing for the time
when he will again begin to draft, this
time with his left hand. This mental
concentration uPon a new task is be-
lieved by doctors and psychologists to
be a valuable antidote for discourage
ment.
AT the same open-air workshop
which is the veranda of a hospital,
man was intent upon knitting scarf
He had chosen worsted of a coral pink
and the knitting was being done upon
a wooden framework. One group of
men. temporarily crippled, were carv-
ing designs upon wooden blocks, and
several were learning to weave upon
hand looms"
IypeWrlllnS ana DaShelTy anu eiSo
the childhood lore of the spelling book
and the arithmetic are some of the
convalescent activities which the blue
gowns direct. In the treatment rooms
inside, they were guiding electrical APP
pliances and administering the COM
piicated series of treatments that per
feet the restoration work started by
the surgeon at the front. There is a
large field for their work among SOL
diers who have been imprisoned for
weeks in casts and bandages alter
wound has been sustained, and the
army provides through the blue gowns
the trained operators.
Since the corps was organized I'M
der Miss Marguerite Sanderson last
January, ray and status for its mem
bers have been established. They re-
ceive $50 a month while on duty in the
United States and $50 a month II
they go abroad. They are housed al
the HOSPITALS. or an allowance of $3.50
a month additional is made them Tor
quarters outside Age limits have
been fixed from % to 40 years.