'LADY WITH LAMP.'

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 24, 29 January 1938, Page 18

'LADY WITH LAMP.'

LETTER TO NURSES. 1 _ HIGH IDEALS STRESSED. i . INTERESTING RELIC. i ___^ (By TVlrgrnph.—Own Cor.-pspondent.) CHRTSTCITURCTT, Friday. Each year in the closing years (,f last century ami in Uie early years of this century :i group of probationer nurses in the Nightingale Training School at St. Thomas' Hospital, London, sent a basket of flowers to an old lady, who was an invalid. Tims they honoured the "Lady With the Lamp," for the oil lady was Florence Nightingale, heroine of the Crimean War and founder of modern nursing. Jμ the possession of Mrs. E. Wood, of Dunedin, who has been attending the annual conference of the Christian Nurses' Union in Christchurcb, is a letter written by Florence Nightingale. Mrs. Woods was one of the probationer nurses who sent the basket of flowers to the great nurse on the occasion of her eighty-first birthday in 1900, t.nd the letter, clearly written and beautifully phrased, was the acknowledgment of the gift. It m significant that even at an a'lvanced age Miss Nightingale wr-s still advocating the maintenar.oe of tlio high ideals she did so much to inculcate in the. nursing profession. The wording of the letter is as follows: — "My dear children, —You have called .me your mother, chief. It is an honour to me, a great honour, to call you my children. Always keep up the honour of this honourable profession. I thank you; may I eay our Heavenly Father thanks you for what you do. 'Lift high the royal banner; it ehall not suffer los«.' The royal banner of nursing should gain through every one of you. It has gained through you immensely. "The old Romans were in eome respects, I think, superior to us. But they had no idea of being good to the sick and weak. That came in with Christianity. Christ' ww the author of our profession. We honour Christ when we are good nurses. We dishonour Him when we are bad or careless nurses. We dishonour Him when we do not do our beet to relieve suffering, even in the meanest creature. Kindnees to sick man, woman or. child came in with Chrwt. They ueed to be left on the banks of the great rivers to starve or drown themselves. Lepers were kept apart. The nation did not try to avert or to cure leprosy. There have been lepers, in England. Xow it m a. thing almost, if not quite unknown. '■■. *.£:?>; ■'■'• Greet Diicei»riee,i;,,-;,-'., '- I "There have been great discoveries in nureing. A very remarkable doctor, a great friend «| mine, now deaij'fihtroduced new ideas about consumption, which might then be called the curse of England. His own wife was what is called consumptive. He ekid to'her: 'Xow you have to choose. Either you must upend the next six month* in your room, or you must garden every day. (They bad a wretched little garden at the end of a street.) You must dig, get vour feet wet every day.' She chose the latter, and became the hardiest of women ind lived to be old. "Tlk> change in the treatment of consumption in complete. I myself eaw a loctor take up a "child sufferer, which teemed ae if it could hardly breathe, •arry it to the window, open the window «t the top and hold it there. The nurse loaitively yelled with horror. He said: When my patient can breathe but little iir, I like that little good.' The child ecoveml and lived to an old age. "A Rick child has been sent to hospital, and recovered. You ask what it had. 'Oh. they save it nothing, nothing.' It i« true they gave it nothing but milk. Milk is 'nothing;' milk— the most nourishing of all things. Sick 1 men have recovered and lived upon milk. 'My eoiil doth magnify the Lord, nnd my spirit hath rejoiced in God mv Saviour.' •The nineteenth century (there wae a tiiiilitif.ii) was to be the century of woman. How true that legendary prophecy has been. Woman wa« the home drudge. Now she is the teacher. Let her not forfeit it by being the arrogant, the -eqiuil with man.' She does not forfeit it by being the helpmeet. 'Now will you let me try to thank you. The worde cannot express my thankfulness for all your kind thoughts, for your beautiful book and basket of flowers and kind wishes, all. God bless you all. and me. your mother chief, a«s you are good enough to call me. My dear children. Florence Nightingale.