NURSES AT THE SEAT OF WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11202, 24 October 1899, Page 3

NURSES AT THE SEAT OF WAR.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— your issue of Saturday, October 14, you publish an article by Dr. R. H. Bakewell, M.D., formerly staff-assistant surgeon of the army, in the Crimea, etc., and you will oblige mo by inserting my reply to it. I may say that the whole article is a gross libel on my sex of the present day. Women of his early days must have been of a rather low order, and ho does not seem to have been in contact since with any better ones. He mentions Sisters of Mercy and religious nurses with admiration— they were adored by the men. Yet he would not have any oilier nurses adored by the patients, which seems very inconsistent. He forgets that it woman can work for tho love of her work, and with the hope of relieving pain and suffering, and r.ot merely for the liopo of receiving a reward in tlio'no.vt world. I know from experience, that men patients hava quite as much respect for secular nurses as tliay have or religious ones, and having mvself trained at ft large public hospital, can say that no oath or foul words were ever uttered in my hearing. Dr. Bakowell's littlo anecdote about the nurse speaking to a man (cousin or not) for a few minutes in a corridor, and being sent back to England for so doing, within a few hours, sounds like tyranny, and certainly was very unfair, unless there was some otiier good reason for dismissing her. The officers in those days who were not allowed to be attended by women ovulontly could not compare favourably in character with the men of the ranks, who wore allowed the luxury. I quite agree with the doctor that Rushing enthusiasts, without experience, would be in the way in any campaign or elsewhere, but I cannot agree thatexperienced nurses would bo so, neither canI agree with him in his great objection to a lady nursing, Kxperiencd in nursing everywhere goes to show that the more refined, intelligent, and sensitive the woman is, tlio Mtter the nurse. I have met many of tins class of nurse and they do not faint at the sight of limbs coming off, etc.; also they can manage on as small a travelling kit as a man. Hie doctor is very rough 011 ladies. He forgets that they also can be good, honest, industrious, and intelligent. llis idea that only the servant class should nurse is wrong, nocording to the views of most successful doctors and surgeons. He evidently is a man of an olden and unjust time. I must draw the doctor's attention to the fact that refined women of the present day have not the stagnated brains of tho women of his day, who seemed, from his account of them, to havo nothing to think of, but finding a husband. " e omen now are imbued the same as men are, with the necessity to be up and doing, which is the characteristic of our race, and if our men must fight and be mutilated wo feel we should ho present in sufficient force with experience to ease their suffering, and to keep them as comfortable and clean as the circumstances will allow. As for tl,o idea that a nurse can show no sympathy or kindness for an elderly patient, it is at once unmanly, unkind, and untrue. It is quite evident by the doctor articlo that he does not understand us of the present day. If lie cannot go with the times he should leave the subjectalone, but if ne must write, I should suggest that he should try to elevate instead of lower the character of women in the eyes of the public.—l am, etc., A Woman.