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And a hospital doctor, who had admitted patients into hospital with the nurses written history of the case, 'doubted if many of our medical students could have sent a better report.'
(2) If a hospital must first of all be a place which shall do the sick no harm, how much more must the sick poor's room be made a place not to render impossible recovery from the sickness which it has probably bred.
This is what London District Nurses do; they nurse the room as well as the patient, and teach the family to nurse the room.
And it requires a higher stamp of woman to do this; to thus combine the servant with the teacher and with the educated woman who can so command the patient's confidence as to let her do this, than almost any other work.
A well-known bishop, now on the bench, cleaned himself the pig-sties of the Normal Training School, of which he was master, as an example,—perhaps one of the most episcopal acts ever done.
(3) A District Nurse must bring to the notice of the Officer of health, or proper authority, sanitary defects, which he alone can remedy.
Thus dustbins are emptied, water butts cleaned, water supply and drainage examined and remedied, which looked as if this had not been done for one hundred years.
Hospitals are but an intermediate stage of civilisation. At present hospitals are the only place where the sick poor can be nursed, or, indeed, often the sick rich. But the ultimate object is to nurse all sick at home.
Where can the sick poor in general be sick?
At home: it is there that the bulk of sick cases are.
But where can nurses be trained for them?
In hospitals: it is there only that skilled nurses can be trained.
