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A NURSE'S LIFE IN WAR AND PEACE

BY

E. C. LAURENCE, R.R.C.

AUTHOR OF "MODERN NURSING IN HOSPITAL AND HOME"

WITH A PREFACE BY

SIR FREDERICK TREVES, BART.
G.C.V.O., C.B., LL.D.


LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1912

[All rights reserved]


Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh




PREFACE


The charm of these letters, it will at once be found, depends upon their
simplicity, their artlessness, their obvious candour. They present a
plain, untinted account of a nurse's career, of the difficulties she has
to face, and the problems she has to solve. Those who wish to know
something of a nurse's life and times will find in this writing a
convincing narrative, unemotional and matter-of-fact.

This is no small merit, since the record of nursing experiences is apt
to be blurred by exaggeration or made nauseous by sickly romance. There
is pathos enough in the sick-room and in the presence of death, but
those who come in touch with it would do better to hush the knowledge in
their hearts, rather than to proclaim it on the house-tops. Apart from
this, the world must be a little weary of the astute sick child who
lisps melodrama into the ear of the "kind nurse," as well as of the
bizarre aphorisms of the dying tramp.

The faults of management and lapses of discipline which crop up
incidentally in the story are now matters of the past, and are no longer
to be found in either the "Children's Hospital" or the "General."

The novice who is entering the profession of Nursing will find in these
letters a sensible and exact view of the prospect that lies before her.
She may further glean some insight as to the qualifications of the good
nurse. These qualifications are to be expressed neither by certificates
nor by badges, neither by starched uniforms nor by examination results.
They are happily beyond the mechanical gauge of any examiner, and above
the platitudes of the official testimonial.

Of the perfect nurse it may be said that "her price is far above
rubies," and that her place is high in the company of admirable women.
She is versed in the elaborate ritual of her art, she has tact and sound
judgment, she can give strength to the weak and confidence to the faint
at heart, she has that rarest sight which can see the world through the
patient's eyes, and she is possessed of those exquisite, intangible,
most human sympathies which, in the fullest degree, belong alone to her
sex.

                                                       FREDERICK TREVES.
_December 1911._




CONTENTS


I
                                                                    PAGE
At School--Determined to be a Nurse--Royal Red Cross
  instituted--Preliminary Training                                     1

II

Visit to Tenerife--A Storm in the Bay--The Beauties of the Island      3

III

Up the Cañadas--Voyage Home on a Cargo-boat--Call at Madeira           8

IV

First Experiences in a Hospital--The Food--Some Medical Cases--My
  First "Special" Case                                                14

V

Moved to a Surgical Ward--In Quarantine--A Poisoned Hand--"Kathleen"  19

VI

In the Out-Patient Department--Food improved, and Heavy Work
  reduced--Act as Night Sister for two nights--Am offered a
  post as Staff Nurse--My first Certificate                           25

VII

To South Africa for a year--Voyage out on the _Scot_--By train
  from Cape Town to Kimberley                                         31

VIII

Life on the Diamond Fields--I meet Mr. Cecil Rhodes--The
  Kimberley Exhibition                                                37

IX

A Visit to Cape Town--Up Table Mountain--Return to Kimberley          42

X

On Circuit in Cape Colony--A Visit to Natal--The Doctor's Fee         48

XI

East London and Port Elizabeth--Down a Diamond Mine
  (Kimberley)--Return to England                                      54

XII

Accepted for training at a General Hospital--I begin in a Medical
  Ward--A sudden death                                                60

XIII

On the Surgical side--A heavy "Take-in" week--Lectures on
  Physiology                                                          66

XIV