NURSES, TRAINED. 



457 



Every country is now endeavoring to adapt its 

 nursing system to the conditions of its people. 



Russia has been trying to adapt methods to fit 

 her needs ever since the Crimean War, where she 

 had her eyes opened to the value of nursing. The 

 nurses of all her military hospitals, and most of 

 those of the large cities and towns, are obtained 

 from the Red Cross training schools. The society 

 is paid for the nurses it furnishes, and then pays 

 the nurses a nominal sum, varying, but always 

 small. The Red Cross differs in different coun- 

 tries, adapting its rules to its environment. In 

 Russia it is semireligious, but its members can 

 leave if they please. Some hospitals have a very 

 small force, no more than 6, with gratuitous 

 helpers under them. The Military Clinical Hos- 

 pital, in St. Petersburg, has a nursing force of 67 

 men, with 15 superintendent sisters over them. 

 Okoncon Hospital has 100 nurses and 25 Red 

 Cross sisters. Children's hospitals all have 

 woman nurses. In time of war Russia has a sis- 

 terhood unlike that of any other country. Women 

 of the very highest social class train for the pur- 

 pose, and in need volunteer, enlisting for the whole 

 war without pay. When war is over they vanish 

 as if they had never been. The tendency is to re- 

 place all male nurses by female. Even voluntary 

 male nurses have not only been found wanting in 

 capacity, but also in perseverance and honesty. 



Italy, which in early times boasted one of 'the 

 world's most famous institutions, along with 

 many others, the Nursing Order of the Holy 

 Ghost, founded by Pope Innocent III, has found 

 herself within recent years without any nurses at 

 all. After united Italy's suppression and con- 

 fiscation of convents and monasteries, when even 

 the irrepressible Sisters of Charity had to fly, 

 there were none to fill their place in all Italy, 

 for 2,256 religious bodies had been suppressed. 

 After a while, as the clamor of the people for 

 their aid became known, the Sisters of Charity 

 began to creep back again, and although the law 

 was still in force, the Government may be said to 

 have winked at their coming. Many of these 

 women have since qualified as nurses, and are now 

 doing good work in Italy. To escape the law they 

 suppress their religious name, and are known 

 simply as superintendents. The large hospital 

 of Maggiore, in Milan, furnishes an example of 

 how they work. Each ward of 50 or 60 beds 

 has a superintendent sister, and under her are 

 4 lay sisters. Yet with this small force their hos- 

 pital is reported to be very well kept. All helpers 

 in the hospital are under their superintendence. 

 Almost anywhere in Italy can now be found nurses 

 trained on the English "or American plan. They 

 can be procured from the training institution at 

 San Remo, presided over by aBellevue nurse. 



Everybody has heard about the rise of the Red 

 Cross Society, which had its inception in the 

 brain of a Swiss gentleman, M. Henri Dunant, 

 who while riding leisurely in his carriage was at- 

 tracted by the thundering of the guns at the bat- 

 l tie of Solferino, obtained admission to the field, 

 and there witnessed suffering so horrible and need- 

 less that it inspired him to write his book, Sou- 

 venir de Solferino, which created a sensation, and 

 was translated into most of the languages of Eu- 

 rope. At the next yearly conference of the Society 

 of Public Utility, held in Geneva in October, 1863, 

 he presented his idea to the great war-making 

 powers of providing a way by which civilians 

 could reach and care for wounded men from the 

 outside. Next year delegates from every Govern- 

 ment in Hie world came to discuss the proposition 

 of M. Dunant, and after due season the treaty of 

 the Red Cross was entered into. 



Meanwhile, the United States was passing 

 through her great civil war. She had no trained 

 nurses, but her Sanitary Commission arose spon- 

 taneously, and did a work that astonished the 

 world, and then dropped out of sight. Miss Clara 

 Barton has told the world of her endeavors to get 

 the Red Cross treaty's invitation to the United 

 States to join it noticed, and Secretary Seward's 

 persistent ignoring of the matter, on the ground, 

 as it afterward appeared, that the United States, 

 being at peace with the nations, did not need to 

 join the treaty. Nor, despite all that individual 

 Americans could do, and although 32 nations were 

 in 'the treaty, could any response from our Gov- 

 ernment be obtained until Miss Barton laid the 

 whole matter before Secretary Blaine, and he in 

 turn placed it before President Arthur, who 

 promptly signed the treaty. The United States is 

 the only country that this treaty permits to ex- 

 tend its ministrations into other fields than those 

 of war. This is also the only country where the 

 Red Cross Society takes for its uses nurses al- 

 ready trained, and trained none of its own until 

 the past year, when a Red Cross training school 

 was founded in New York. 



An account of nursing seems hardly complete 

 without mentioning two women, both of them of 

 France, both equally heroic, and representing re- 

 spectively the older and newer orders of nursing. 



Mme. Coralie Cohen, widow of a physician, 

 was first heard of after the breaking out of the 

 Franco-German War. She was one of the first 

 trained nurses to respond, and throughout the 

 campaign proved herself a marvel of devotion and 

 courage, going through the German ranks and 

 nursing their wounded as carefully as she nursed 

 the men of her own beloved France. Yet she 

 found opportunity to proclaim her patriotism. 

 She had established an ambulance at Vendome 

 after the capitulation of Metz, and was nursing 

 800 wounded, when German officers hoisted their 

 flag over the ambulance. She at once refused to 

 work except under her own flag, and announced 

 that if the German flag was not removed she and 

 her staff would depart. The Germans, admiring 

 her pluck and determination, replaced the French 

 flag. The war over, she traveled into Germany, 

 seeking out her countrymen in hospitals and 

 prisons there. The Empress Augusta so admired 

 her philanthropy and courage that she presented 

 Mme. Cohen with the Red Cross of the German 

 order, and in 1889 the French Government pre- 

 sented her with the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. 



In the autumn of the same year a Sister of 

 Charity was also presented with the Cross of 

 the Legion of Honor, and in presenting it the 

 general in command made this speech : " Sister 

 Maria Theresa, you were only twenty years of 

 age when you first gave your services to the 

 wounded at Balaklava, and you were wounded 

 in the execution of your duty. You were again 

 wounded at Magenta. You bravely nursed the 

 wounded through all our wars in Syria, China, 

 and Mexico. You were carried off the field at 

 Worth, and before you recovered from your in- 

 juries you were again performing your dutic-. 

 When a grenade fell into your ambulance, you 

 without hesitation took it in your hands and car- 

 ried it a hundred yards from the ambulance, where 

 it exploded, wounding you severely. No soldier 

 ever performed his duty more heroically than you 

 have done, or lived more successfully for his com- 

 rades or his country. I have the honor to present 

 you, in the name of France and of the French 

 army, with the cross which is only conferred upon 

 those who have shown remarkable bravery in 

 action. Soldiers, present arms! " 



