HEALTH 299 



not say this as a reproach to anyone, or even as a con- 

 demnation of a system which, if logically carried out, as 

 fortunately it seldom is, comes very near to being the 

 greatest of modern tyrannies. My reason for noticing it 

 is that, though under these conditions the responsibility 

 of the mother or wife becomes different and much less 

 simple, it is by no means entirely over, as many young 

 people seem to me to imagine. We none of us wish for 

 one moment to return to the nurses of the type described 

 by Dickens, but I do think we ought all of us, in our homes 

 and with any influence we may have on our generation, to 

 guard against throwing ourselves entirely into the hands 

 of the doctors and nurses, with an absolute submission of 

 our intelligence a submission which we should think 

 ridiculous and impossible in any of the other conditions 

 of life. It is bad for them and bad for us. Such power 

 is too much. Such a neglect of our duties and such 

 complete dependence on others may have most disastrous 

 consequences on ourselves, and, still worse, may seriously 

 injure the lives of those we love. Nothing matters so 

 much, be it old style or new, as that sickness in the house, 

 end it ever so favourably, should hurt or lessen family 

 love ; for, as Thackeray says in one of his letters, ' Aimons 

 nous lien. It seems to me that is the only thing we can 

 carry away, and when we go let us have some who love 

 us wherever we are.' 



Nurses have a very hard life, and almost all women 

 who work are apt to belong to the overworked portion of 

 the community. That they should combine in any way 

 that is possible, for their own advantage and for the 

 maintenance of their old age, is very much to be desired. 

 But the public should never for one moment forget that 

 nursing, which began in devotion and forgetfulness of self, 

 as a vocation, has now become, in the most acknowledged 

 sense of the word, a profession and an employment for 



