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Tun truth is that 2 profession child, almost more than any other, demands gentleness, fact, delicacy, and sympa thetic comprehension, as well as some faint idea of the power of drugs under certain conditions and combinations, has, with singular short-sightedness on the part of society, been given over to the tender mercies of those who are most de ficient in all these qualities. A woman in the lower ranks of life becomes widowed, cannot support herself with her needle, tries keeping a boarding-house and fails, as a last resource goes out to nurse. A rough-handed, cofree-volted creature, without, a particle of fitness, innate or ac quired, but with friends who know how to manipulate a primary meeting in Mac Kerelville, asks for an appointment in a hospital and gets it. If one is ever obliged by duty, or inspired by philanthropic in stinct to visit a hospital in any of our great cities, it will need no more than a casual glance to convince him that the nurses are not drawn from the ranks of gentlewomen. ‘There are unpleasant of fices and laborious adjuncts connected with pueeing (no there are with every thing that is real wet, which do not render it attractive in itsck to ladies. We have all heard of the soldier who said wearily to the pretty miss bending over him with the cologne bottle in her hand, ‘Oh! yes'm, bathe my head if all do you any good, but you're the fifteenth woman that’s done it to-day;” and we know, some of us, that the cologne-bottle part is the very smallest part of the worl in a sick-chamber. Romance and sentiment disappear before the utter practical real ism of a life narrowed between four walls, concentrated to the need and the weak ness and the childishness of a sufferer whose mind is enfeebled with his body, trained to rigid self control, and strained by fatigue and want of sleep. But the bett class of women are filing our care with their desire for something to do. They complain that they want oppor tunity, that they perish for lack of a place to use their talents, that they are shut out from the kingdom of heaven by the limi tations of sex. Now, “the kingdom of heaven,” said Christ, “is within you,” and to those who are in earnest, a few roughnesses and hardnesses will not ren der true work distaseful or impossible. “Shall educated women spend their time in airing flannels and making gruels for hire?” says an intelligent critic. Well, it detracts nothing from the dignity of any honest work that it is done for pay ; and Mr Beecher never said anything truer in his life than when he said that an educated man would even light a fire better than an ignorant one. ‘The soft, cool touch, the level accent, the deft hand, the sweet fuel, are needed in the invalid’s room and in the wards of the public hospital; and so long as people are sick and doctors are in demand, nurses will be. Skilled nursing even now commands good Wages, and there is no reason why. 98 a profession, it should not tale rank with the one that it necessarily supplements, that of medicine. —Hearth and Home.
Newspaper Details
Rolla Express Newspaper
Rolla, Missouri, US
Sat, Jul 19, 1873
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 28 Dec 2025
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