The questions in regard to them are two. Shall their office be confined
to the care of the linen and stores, and the supplying of extra diets
and comforts? If admitted to officiate in the wards, how far shall that
function extend?

In England, there seems to be a strong persuasion that some time must
elapse, and perhaps a generation of doctors must pass away, before the
ministration of female nurses in military hospitals can become a custom,
or even an unquestioned good. No rational person can doubt what a
blessing it would be to the patients to have such nurses administer
nourishment, when the rough orderlies would not have discernment or
patience to give the frequent spoonful when the very life may hang upon
it. Nobody doubts that wounds would be cleansed which otherwise go
uncleansed,--that much irritation and suffering would be relieved which
there are otherwise no hands to undertake. Nobody doubts that many lives
would be saved in every great hospital from the time that fevered frames
and the flickerings of struggling vitality were put under the charge of
the nurses whom Nature made. But the difficulties and risks are great.
On the whole, it seems to be concluded by those who know best, that
only a few female nurses should be admitted into military and naval
hospitals: that they should be women of mature age and ascertained good
sense, thoroughly trained to their business: that they should be
the women who have been, or who would be, the head nurses in other
hospitals, and that they should be paid on that scale: that they should
have no responsibility,--being wholly subject to the surgeons in
ward affairs, and to their own superintendent in all others: that no
enthusiasts or religious devotees should be admitted,--because that very
qualification shows that they do not understand the business of nursing:
that everything that can be as well done by men should be done by
trained orderlies: that convalescents should, generally speaking, be
attended on by men,--and if not, that each female nurse of convalescents
should have a hundred or so in her charge, whereas of the graver cases
forty or fifty are as many as one nurse can manage, with any amount
of help from orderlies. These proposals give some idea of what is
contemplated with regard to the ordinary nurses in a General Military
Hospital. The superintendent of the nurses in each institution must be a
woman of high quality and large experience. And she will show her go