404 HEALTH PROBLEMS IN COUNTRY DISTRICTS. 



whether white, black, or coloured, and when we think how often 

 the outlying Kaffir kraal forms a focus for virulent infectious 

 disease, which is ready to take its toll from the white people., it 

 is not necessary to argue about the necessity for looking after the 

 sick Kaffir. Let me recall to mind the outbursts of plague, 

 bubonic or pneumonic, small-pox, the ravages of typhus in the 

 Cape Province, which even now may not be over. 



I have already referred to the need for trained midwives, 

 and I now add skilled nurses for general illnesses. I have great 

 respect for the Boer women on the farms, and the men who will 

 see that the instructions of the doctor are carried out to the letter, 

 but when you see a woman from overseas lying helplessly ill, with 

 no relatives in the country, and dependent on the kindness of 

 neighbours, you wish for skilled nursing. Or, again, if the man, 

 his wife, and child, are all ill at one time, and the sister who alone 

 is at hand to help, is herself in an advanced state of pregnancy, 

 one is apt to look around and ask where is the help that should 

 come to such as these? 



As regards the King Edward Nurses, from whom so much 

 w'as expected, the latest report, that for 19 17, reveals the fact 

 that they have not the financial support nor the stafif to supply 

 the needs of the country, and their regulations show a lack of 

 knowledge and imagination of the conditions of life among the 

 people who require help. 



A scheme is on foot among the Dutch women of all parties 

 to provide Dutch-speaking nurses for country districts, and we 

 may wish them all success, but it must be remembered that 

 country work bears with it much individual responsibility, and all 

 nurses for country work must be thoroughly trained up to the 

 highest standard. Partial training is not fair either to the nurse 

 or the patient. It has been tried in other parts, and has been 

 found unsatisfactory. The useful village nurse in an English 

 village, within a stone's throw of the doctor, is on an entirely 

 different footing from a nurse in a farm-house, perhaps many 

 hours away from the nearest authoritative adviser. 



Another point is the need for a lavish distribution of tele- 

 phones throughout the country, with call-offices of easy access, 

 and a free telephone installed for every doctor in a country town 

 or district. Every country school might have a call-office, as it 

 may be supposed that they are fairly convenient for a group of 

 surrounding farms. At the house of a resident J. P., or Veld- 

 Cornet, if a farm, there should be a call-office, and at every 

 country police-station. The calls starting from a call-office could 

 be charged a fixed reasonable fee, irrespective of mileage, say, 

 perhaps, is. It is not necessary that these country telephones 

 should be commercially payable propositions ; they ought to be 

 looked upon as public health necessities, and as a means of 

 rendering life on the farms more free from mental anxiety. If 

 once the country realised the help and comfort it would be to 

 them to be within verbal communication with a doctor in times 



