Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1918-01-24
DIRE MED FOR
HELP SHE SAYS
Continued from first page.)

! mania) is stripped of everything. Ev
eryOne says that after December /
there will not be morsel of food left
in this country.
eyes, we have a hospital-that is
! what they call it. We are not doing
anything that we expected to do when
we came. We are doing the only
thing we can do until our supplies
come, then we can do some social
| work, or relief work in the homes
We found this place, 600-bed barn
near the front. Two English doctors
and four nurses had it, but were worn
out and sick and were leaving. The
place is quite impossible, but the best
in the country. Big church-like place
filled with sick, half-starved, dirty
| smelling, dieing men, on piles of straw
| put on boards, piled in without sheets
dirty blankets thrown over them; they
! are in fearful shape.
Sloppy Nurses
GA group of eight Russian sisters
, were supposed to be the nurses; they
did absolutely no nursing; they
! dressed wounds in a sloppy, careless
! manner and left the hospital as soon
. as they were through with the dress
ings; they did some slight operations,
no training at all. They were dolled
up with paint powder, long wells and
smoked cigarettes constantly The
! English had to keep them, or starve !;
we have had to keep them, too. The
Russian Red Cross can get some food
through, when all other ways fail, but
how we hate them. We are showing
them a few things about nursing which
they can't help but notice.
"Our doctors have worked hard
cleaning up the rottenest wounds, TAX
ing off bandages and casts, lined with
magg0ts and long worms; they have
cut off legs and arms to save lives,
and if we had food to give to the poor
souls some Of them would have q
chance to recover, but every day they
get paler and every night some die.
It's really getting terribly on our
nerves to be here so helpless. Why
did we come? Of course we brought
a few supplies with us, as we really
never expected to get here ourselves,
after we struck Russia and had such
trouble in getting through.
Not Fighting Much
"When l think of Milwaukee Base
hospital, SIS nurses and all the things
you will have to work with, just wish
you could, some way or other, drop
down out here. Of course they are not
fighting much here now, and most Of
our cases are old infections, but the
need of an OrthOpedic man and a vO-
catiOnal worker has been uppermOst
in our minds. The things we wish for
would fill a book; what we will do
when our supplies come, would fill an
other book, and another one still could
be written about these eight Russian
sisters.
"When we came we found they had
some black, sweet, smelly stuff they
called tonic and whenever cOnven-
lent a sister would take the bottle and
one spoon and go from bed to bed
giving each patient a taste from the
spoon Poor things, tonic and moth
ing to eat.
Supplies Needed
"'We have one piece of gauzg left
it isn't really gauze either; it is yellow
butter cloth, and I have to boil all the
dressings to sterilize them and make
them absorb at all. We have no hot
water not even in the operating room,
except what is carried from the laun-
dry. Whatever you do, take a laundry
equipment with you.
81 do wonder if you have gone, and
where, and what you are doing, if you
will land in as folorn a place as this.
We are white washing, scrubbing and
cleaning as much as we can, with soap
like gold, getting ready for the much
dreaded typhus, which has just start
ed and as cold weather comes on we
shall be swamped. That is the prob
lem now; all else is forgotten. The
lack Of food, and the fear of typhus
drive these people wild, and I can't
blame them much.
Whole Villa es Wiped Out
whole villages were wiped out last
winter, and they died in the street
with it, They have no care, and de-
velop gangrene and many other COM
plications. We cannot even, with
separate cleaning-up room, keep the
lice out Of the hospital. Men and
maids and visitors bring them in. Two
hundred doctors died in Jassy from
it, mostly French I guess. We will
surely have our hands full this winter
1--WE hope to open up three typhus
hospitals in different places, and also
children's hospital; we must do
something for the children. We can
not fix up our hospital, as we cannot
buy window glass, lead piping, nails
or plumbing things at all; also we
have no pins, needles or thread. The
English, until a few months ago, OPP
Grated on three boxes put together;
recently they got table. For months