TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10480, 19 October 1899, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Some people, ns we men* .' ' Nurses tioned a few days ago, are at the Sea* disappointed at the action of of War. fcho Government in. refusing, to allow: any norses , * or members of the Red Gross * Brigade to accompany , tihe,,' Contingent to • South Africa. ' Djk. ; , Bakewell, of ■ . Auckland, is not one of 'meae ; on the con* traxy he received the, bows "with grea* gmitification." Dr. Bakiewell, "formerly staff-assistant .surgeon of the .army of the Crimea," saw ilhe first experiment of nuraing soldiers ia the fießid, as conducted'by "__ Misa Nightingale end apparently did not iMvk anucli of it. Yet this own experience of nuoises seems to Jtaw been.all man could, ~. ~ desire. When he ftirived at Scutari and was '>; ordered for duty to the general hospital there, with ita 800 beds, he' found Miss „ ' •:■' Nightingale 'and 2ier nurses already installed, ■, ,j and in the ward of which he was given '--. -J dharge, were -two to reft- '-fj gioua ordeiti, for wfcoin Dr,'BakeweU admit* : ; (ho cannot sufficiently express hie admiration' * f . •■ and esteem. "They were indefatigable," ha , says. "At all 'hours of the day and, when- ■*'.;. ever a patient s>eeded-*speckiT attention' or, ■ } was dying, of the maghifc,' too, the eietiera were ', '\ to be found at tibe patient's bedside. Never / petulant or impatient or sulky or ill-tempered.- • '] I never saw such women before, and I have never seen any such since; The mem adored •' ,' jfrhem, «und would do eoytihinjj in tibe -world for them. They worked, not for gold,. nor__ "' for fame, hot to catch a husband, but for -' . the love of God. They diffused a kind of , ,j talo of purity and l eancbiit-y around them, and , ■ -| not an oath, or a foul wand was ever heard ■ while 'Sister* was in the ward," But with •" • regard for the paid nurses and tli-ope who, -' as Dr. Bakewcll remarks, "came out gushing - . with emotion," we ore left to understand that they were everything a nurse should not be. "They used to come, and they used to go, ( ■ and thait often very soon after they ■< i . for Miss Nightingale was very sharp with them. She had absolute control, there being no appeal from her orders, and we are told 'how eke packed a nurse back to ', < j England at on (hour's notice because die had ~ been seen to stop <amd talk to ma. officer in - a corridor. The girl said ihe officer was her ( ; "I -' cousin, but the dootor leaves us to infer ' - fchat the ' relationship was an imaginary one, though notihing i<9 given to support this inference. - • ' ', ' ; " Miss Nigbtnngale is a womaa A Doctor's whom every Englishman ' '/ Diatribe, must reverence for the noble way in which she reduced ?■ chaos to order and. lightened the sufferings :- of our wounded in the Scutari hospitals. * She had to mainkin discipline among her i and may have (had amply suffip cient reasons for acting as she did in the case v , just quoted. But tihe etory in no way, that . i we can see, affects the value of the emptey ment of -women as army nurses. Dr.' Bakewell, however, declares that women with '-'- i an army in Mass field are a corse. "Tlfe women . i who want to go out nursing soldiers on • ■ . active service before the enemy ore," he says, "either, gushing enthusiasts who don't know what they are about, or hard-headed, intensely practical women, who go because 1 there ia money in it, and a possible busband - , • to be picked up, of a rank or position much . above their own." This is fairly sweeping i end, we sincerely believe, utterly untrue of the majority of volunteer nurses. Dr. Bakewell is gratified because "the gushera cannot ' get appointed nowadays," and because "the ladies t>f fhe Red Cross Brigade, having.had . * : . i Ho hospital practice, would" cot be listened , to for a moment." They would not only be , perfectly useless, but a dreadful nuisance, is his opinion, based on an apparently profound " disbelief in their knowledge of nursing or , dressing wounds or of the work that would -/* lie before them. In the kt&er respect, at " -j" least, they would be no worse off than the troops we are sending to South Africa, and like them the women nurses would, we are ■ , sure, do their duty unfiicphingly. But any ■ ' argument would be thrown away upon Dr. BakeweU, who pronounces emphatically i against any women at all being employed to > nurse men, and especially against lady nurses, , with an added emphasis an. the "lady." "Eor • , my part," he says, "I detest having women about mc when lam sick. I think men ' should nuxse men, and women women. ■ : I Women can gush over young mcc, but wheC . '" ' sympathy or kindness can a man of my ag»

expect from a young woman? Why, she taurel? tolerates irim, M«l.if he becomes the least troublesome, ah* soon lets him know j that bo > not to botim her." This is j Buaopviiy run mad. Something, of course, depends upon the patient, and we can fcnaginc that if Dr. Bakewell ever talked to i bis nurse about nurses as he talks to the public "boot them, she might '"barely tolerate lijm." We think, however, be will find f«w men to agree with him a> to tbe Buperiority of male nurses over the ministerJlj: angel* of modern life. So greatly has Natal grown The Weather into all our thoughts during ia Natal. the past few weeks, that it may be of interest to give lome account from a reliable authority of tbe diraati , of the colony in wliich our young New Zeahtnders mfl have their first taste of campaigning and of war. Every scbool|x»f no doubt knows the physical configuration «f the colony, but that is not to say , thai every man end woman does. It may be ■aid, therefore, in the first place, that the jnland frontier of Natal ia formed by mountain ranges, running fairly parallel to the coast, from which they are distant some 160 jnße*. For that distance the land slopes down to the sea, forming, as has been said, the bevelled edge to the high, table land of South Africa. This elope is cut up in all directions by ridges and curves, winding and twisting in every possible way, and COBStitoting a labyrinth of bills with inter? teoinjf ravines and watercourses. In the high country these ridges are mostly green pastures, forests clothing , the sides of the higher hills and the recesses of the moist ravines, vntlo on some of the lower lull •lope there is a good deal of thorny bush. Seventy mile* front the sea the land has risen to a height of 5000 ft. As a natural conseqtKOC* of the "lie of the land" Natal enjoys I copious rainMl, which occurs mostly at the period of greatest heat, and of most active Hid vigorous vegetation. The wind blows pjore or loss steadily from the sea, and as til* moteturc-loden air travels over the high many elopes heavy rains, such as those reported to have fallen lately in the colony, ensue, accompanied often "f thunderstorms Of great severity. South African thunderstorms are of a distinctly tropical character, a* even those travellers who have only heard (I itorm crashing on Table Mountain will agree, and those of Natal are quite up to the average. It is said that aibout forty thunderttonaa on an average occur at Pietermaritaburg during the six hottest month* of the year—from October to March—and the average annual rainfall of the place is tha+~ inches, of which four-fifths fall during the same period. Unfortunately this is the part of tbe Natal year. The greatest heat and heaviest rainfall occurring It the tome season make for the prevalence of fever in some places, though fever may to tome extent be combotted by personal care.