The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-07-14

overseas Hospitals rode up In cannon
on March 26 to an evacuation hospital
at Chateau Ognon, the French surgeons
whose hurry call for help had brought the
unit looked up and burst into peals of
laughter.
"Mon Dieu! Des femnesw they roared,
half in despair, half in sardonic amuse.
ment.
French women do not affect surgery,
and this was not the sex that overta1ed
medical corps had in mind when it i'm
plored aid from the Americans. But
making the best of what he supposed was
an Indifferent bargain the medical com.
mandant of the district put DR.. Shelly,
DR.. Finley, DR.. Hunt, DR.. Formal and
DR.. Povitsky at what was really nurses
aid work.
They and the nurses who accompanied
them went up and down the dusky, pain
haunted wards and corridors where the
wounded lay SO thick one could hardly
step without treading on some shattered
man. They assisted in operations per-
formed by the light of lanterns carried
by gentle old French priests who had be-
come erderlies; they cut the clothes off the
patients just arrived; they did in short
whatever offered gladly and efficiently and
very soon their chance came to them. And
when after a week DR.. Finley was in
charge of a shock treatment ward and
DR.. Sholly had shown what was in her
by operating twenty hours without rest
and the others ha' equally redeemed their
sex, the men surgeons no longer laughed
at the "dames Americaines."
Ask for Another Unit.
Now, after six months trial Of the
Women's Overseas Hospitals, the French
Government has asked the National
Woman Suffrage Association, which sent
the unit over and is financing it, to sup
ply Immediately a personnel Of fifty
women, doctors, nurses, nurses aids,
clerks, chauffeurs, &C., to run a 300 bed
hospital to be established for the care Of
gas cases. Mrs. Raymond Brown, who
went to France for the suffragists to in
spect the units they had sent and report
what was needed, came back last week
with this official request and is securing
the country now for the very best experts
her sex can furnish to enlist for this dan.
gerous work.
at is dangerous" she told me in her
Office at national suffrage headquarters,
III Madison avenue, dangerous not only
because it will probably be near the front,
but because the gassed men come in 50
full of the poisonous stuff, their clothes
and their very bodies reeking with it,
that the nurses and doctors must breathe
in a good deal and the clerks who handle
their clothes do, too"
"Well, is it hard to get women for dan.
gerous servicef" I asked.
She turned before answering me 10
speak to young woman, a nurse, who
had come in to volunteer for the Women's
Overseas Hospitals. She asked the appli-
cdllI IL SIZE NiSHtu " kO Will Tue gas
contingent, adding that unless she was
ready to 60 into perilous places she must
not sign for that.
"But l want dangerous service-that is
Just what DESIRE" the girl said eagerly.
Beg for Places Near the Front.
@That's perfectly typical" Mrs. Brown
said after the girl had left "AU our
women over there beg for the places near
est the front. Why is itf Well, there's
some patriotism in it, and some of the
desire for adventure, but mostly it is a
wish to test oneself. The French women
and the British women have been tested,
they've gone through fire and proved that
they can stand up TO it, but the Ameri-
cans are just starting.
Judging from the American nurses
on the top floor of the hotel in Paris
where stayed they are getting iron
nerves already. There were air raids al I.
most every night-eleven nights out of the