The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-03-04
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
FREDERIC J. HASKIN. Director.
WOMEN DOCTORS AT THE FRONT
Washington, D. c.

Is Washington, D. c.
| WOMEN DOCTORS AT THE FRONT.
The war has brought the woman
| doctor into her own all over the world.
Thru centuries of strenuous opposition
women have struggled for a place in
| the medical sun. They have been re-
buffed, discouraged and sneered at.
Medical universities have refused to
receive them and medical boards have
! refused to license them In three
years, the war has done what centuries
| of patient determination could not TO-
! 1t has given women an assured place
in the medical profession NOT only
are those who are eligible pe1ng IL
| censed with gratifying CELEBRITY, put
| for the first time women are actually
being encouraged to study medicine.
| At the beginning of the war, the
| medical women of England and Scot
| land applied for permission to open
| a military hospital in London They
met the customary rebuff from the
| British government. With their cnar-
/ acteristic determination to serE% these
! women Immediately set out Tor otheI
countries whose needs were 50 great
that they did not dare refuse them.
An organized unit of these women
doctors went to France ana succeeoeu
| in establishing a hospital in the Hotel
| CIaridge in Paris. Here they achieved
| such renown for their efficiency and
skill that a year later they mad the
/ satisfaction of being requested by the
British government to come nome ana
take charge of an army hospital in
London. This hospital is now manned
entirely by women, from head sur
geons and physicians to ambulance
drivers and plumbers
| Two other English women doctors,
refused an opportunity to serve their
/ home country at the beginning OF the
war went to Antwerp and proceeded
to set up a hospital for the care OF the
Belgian wounded. These women stuck
to their posts thruOut the long siege
of Antwerp, working fifteen and some
times twenty-four hours a day, ana
leaving their patients only when &C
tually driven out by the Germans:
Once in France, they again establsned
| became so great that the French men
doctors came to watch them
The Scottish Women's hospitals was
organized in 1914, largely thru the
endeayor of DR.. Elsie Onglis, a grad
uate of Edinburgh. Units of Scottish
medical women were at once sent to
4 France, Belgium and Servia- Where-
ever these women have gone tney nave
performed remarkable featS OF endur-
ance, skill and efficiency, often Work-
ing under the enemy's fire and racing
death equally with men. But no
where have the dangers In their pain
been so great as in Serv1a-
Scottish women's unit. arriving in
Malta during the first year of the war,
was housed in what was known as the
married quarters of the barracks OPP
posite the military hospital, ACCORDING
to DR.. Caroline Matthews. one OF the
. members of the unit. The quarters
were divided into small apartments,
| consisting of two rooms and Kitchen,
containing cupboards. chairs a lew
inadequate saucepans ana oeos .hat
showed unmistakable signs or long
and hard service. The blankets were
covered with thin powder which the
women grimly recognized as naptna-
: lin They looked at each other, as
| NAV in their faces, for until the war
these women had never been without
the comforts OF clean and Ncomfort-
a HE homes. Then one of them voiced
, her fear to the officer assigning them
the quarters
he bugs he assured her courteously,
"but there is no danger. Iney are
not the ones that carry fyphus-
/ At the time the significance or TINS
, | speech was lost upon the women, put
later when typhus ragged thruout Ser,
via they had occasion to be thank1ul
that the vermin of the barracks were
: of a harmless order.
? Still when the Serbian wounded
, started pouring into the hospital after
the first Austrian invasion there was
} danger enough, for they brought the
: other kind OF vermin with them. In
, one week seven women, DOCTORS ano
nurses died of typhus. And Such Is
the spirit of medical women that When
2 the news was received at home. live
. hundred other women volunteered to
take their places.
, The work of the women doctors in
Servia was made more difficult oy tine
general lack of sanitation that pre-
Il vailed turnout the country and by It's
= isolation from centers or Suppnes
These two factors called for part1cu,
larly steady nerves and patience anc
e occasional moments of genius.
n Thus when the tents for one WON
n ems hospital unit arrived from Grea
Britain they were found to be with
out poles, and there was nothing fol
= the women to do but to go 10 tns
= nearest forest and cut poles Tor them
. Again when a supply of much-neeoee
l stoves came without tstove-pipe, the
e ingenuity of one woman doctor saved
n the situation. She carefully construct
q ed a stove-pipe out OF empty tomato
: cans.
d of the women's units was entirely on
II of iodine. "A supply from England
had arrived at nearby town, put M
= one could be hired to bring 1T to tn
C hospital. For the way to the tow
N Law thru a mountain pass that wa
= reported already to be held by tn
Il advancing Austrians. Another day
n perhaps, and the hospital would hav
= to move on a little farther into tn
. mountain Businesses. but in the mean
II time no iodine. Then a woman doc
If tor, with the quiet determination o
her kind decided to get it.
u And get it she did. There was al
, Austrian uniform in the hospita
y laundry-one that had been removed
% from a dead prisoner. The woman
,e doctor put it on. slipped an automati
- revolver in the coat pocket and
small bottle of poison in her boot
then. on the one old nag that the hos
/ rode the sid