Omaha daily bee., 1919-12-28
Unlsss above himsslf he can
Erect himself. hsv pser thing 10 man!
Samuel Daniel

hall for q moment. When she came
back the window was opened and the
man was gone, clad only in hospital
psjamas. Out across the yard and
the street two orderiies followed his
bare footprints in the snow, and
after 20 minutes found him hiding
in q coal bin on the back piazza of
= tenement house. They brought
him back and put him to bed, and
he lived through it. THAT nurse
was an outside graduate nurse,
50 she got off with only a short
reprimand," said the speaker, but il
she had been one of our own girls it
would have gone hard with her"
To the nurses in hospital every
patient is not a man or woman,
hut a ease" and they will discuss
al unusual one with all the scientific
cold-bloodedness of the doctors in
consultation. IT remember while
was in training" said nurse, "there
came into the hospital a most un-
usual case of meningitis. He was
foreigner who had evidently con-
tracted the disease on the other side
OF the water, and he was in terrible
agony. He gradually became bent
50 that when he died his head and
feet were like the two ends of
horseshoe. All the nurses in the
hospital were called and allowed to
see him from the doorway-the dis
ease is very contagious--and the
doctors explained it to us. He was.
so bent that we had to work fast to
get him Strengthened out before
rigidity set in"
Never Get Hardened to Death.
Death, the nurses say, is the one
thing in their experience to which
they never become hardened. 1t all
ways gives them a queer, unpleasant
feeling to have a patient die, and If
it is a private case they leave the
house as soon as possible.
In hospital one of nurses
strong temptations is her access to
all sorts of drugs and medicine. It
is. the easiest. thing in the world for
her, if she has a headache or that
tired feeling" to take the same
drug which she has been ordered to
administer to some patient for the
same reason, and soon form a habit
which she cannot break.
She takes what comes to her
through the registry or whatever
source she is depending on for work,
without complaining whether it be
short case or long case, easy or
difficult, for it is one of the highest
ethical principles of the profession
to do this.
Most nurses prefer a longtime
case to one where they stay only a
few days, after which the family of
the patient essays to do the nursing
al the end of the illness, because Of
the satisfaction which comes from
seeing a thing through. II much
prefer a seriously i'll patient to a
light illness to care for" said one
young nurse, "and how do love to
get at real sick person and clean
him up, make him as comfortable as
possible"
In her words lie the keynote to
the charm and the beauty OF the pro-
fession for all high-minded girls
who choose nursing for their life
work. Their service Is the most per-
feet giving of self to the service of
G others-service which, rightly per-
formed, takes every ounce of the
nurses personality, and her physical
and mental strength. And as local
minister said the other day. "The
nurse who wants to give strength
and hope and new courage to live,
to the patients she is caring gor,
must first get these things for her
self, that she may give them to