ble her to
act intelligently of her own initiative in any emergency.

The maternity nurse, on the other hand, has not had an adequate training
and is absolutely helpless, so far as medical knowledge is concerned, in a
real emergency. Her experience is limited to what she has picked up in the
various cases she has had. She, as a rule, has chosen this means of
obtaining a living as a result of some domestic financial affliction. She
does not understand the laws of sterilization and has not been trained to
obey, without question, the instructions of a physician. The maternity
nurse follows a routine which she is incapable of modifying to suit the
particular case. She has old-fashioned ideas and notions which she carries
out as a matter of course, and she overestimates the great importance of
her experience to the extent of wholly disregarding the advice of the
physician. She assumes the care of the patient and baby, and regards this
as her right, and as a result she is frequently responsible for much injury
to the mother and child. Despite these objections we have worked with many
of these nurses who were to be preferred to trained nurses. It is the
individual after all that counts, and if a maternity nurse, though
technically untrained, is adaptable, tactful, and will consent to be [71]
instructed to the extent of obeying without argument, she can become
invaluable, and her skill and experience will carry her creditably over
many trying incidents. The objection of the medical profession to an
untrained nurse is based, not so much on her lack of ability, as upon her
propensity to indiscriminate and indiscreet talk,--they have not been
trained to know the value of professional silence, nor have they had the
necessary education which would have enabled them to acquire through their
experience the knowledge that "silence is golden" at all times. A trained
nurse possesses the requisite knowledge, but may have an objectionable
individuality. An untrained nurse may have sufficient knowledge, and what
she lacks she may make up for in being congenial and adaptable. While the
trained nurse strictly attends exclusively to the mother and the baby, a
maternity nurse as a rule attends to the household duties in addition. She
cooks the meals of the entire family, and dresses and cares for the other
children if there is no one else to do it. The duties of a maternity nurse
can be specified and agreed upon, and the terms arranged when she