The nurses in turn have a pride in the hospital as great as the doctor’s own, and are as devoted to it.  “The nurses are fine in standing up for our standard of cleanliness,” Dr. Stone wrote to a fellow-physician.  “For instance, when this patient came (a very poor woman) the nurses got hold of her, bathed her, and put her in our clean, white clothes and tucked her away in one of these clean white beds in no time....  She begged to keep the bandages on her bound feet.  ‘No,’ the nurses said, ’such dirty bandages in our clean bed!  No!’”

Writing to Dr. Danforth of her first graduating class, Dr. Stone said:  “You may ask if they are going to run away and earn large sums for themselves.  No, they are going to stay and help me in the hospital work, or earn money for the hospital.  You see, I assign each one to a department of work, and she is the head-nurse of that department.  Then by turn I send them out to do private nursing, and the sums they earn are turned into the hospital for caring for the poor who cannot help themselves.  Mrs. Wong is nursing Mrs. B——­ of our own mission at Nanking, and when she comes back Miss Chang will be sent to Wuhu to nurse a lady of another mission.  Dr. Barrie, of Kuling, has written to me to engage several for the new hospital at Kuling for foreigners during this summer season.  I told him I could accommodate him because I have three other classes in training....  The spirit has been most beautiful among the nurses.  Many of them take their afternoon ’off duty’ to do evangelistic work in the homes of patients.”

The well-trained corps of nurses is one of the most convincing testimonies to that of which the whole hospital is a proof—­the administrative ability of the physician in charge.  No detail of a well-managed hospital, from the record files and wheel stretchers to the hand-power washing machine, is neglected.  Nevertheless the hospital is conducted with true economy.  Dr. Stone defines economy as “the art which avoids all waste and extravagance and applies money to the best advantage.  It is not economy to buy cheap furniture that has to be replaced all the time.  It is poor economy to buy cheap food and let patients suffer for lack of nourishment....  It is poor economy to use cheap drugs and drug your patient’s life out.  It is poor economy to use wooden beds and have to patronize Standard Oil to keep them clean.  It is also poor economy not to use sheets and thin quilts, instead of the heavy comfortables the Chinese have, just in order to save the heavy washing and disinfection.  It is poor economy to have cheap servants who can do nothing.  With trained workers to look after instruments, instead of having to depend on servants, I find instruments last longer.”  As a result, the universal testimony of those who visit the hospital is, “Dr. Stone has one of the finest hospitals we have ever seen.”