But, as far as regards the art of petty management in hospitals, all the military hospitals I know must be excluded.  Upon my own experience I stand, and I solemnly declare that I have seen or know of fatal accidents, such as suicides in delirium tremens, bleedings to death, dying patients dragged out of bed by drunken Medical Staff Corps men, and many other things less patent and striking, which would not have happened in London civil hospitals nursed by women.  The medical officers should be absolved from all blame in these accidents.  How can a medical officer mount guard all day and all night over a patient (say) in delirium tremens?  The fault lies in there being no organized system of attendance.  Were a trustworthy man in charge of each ward, or set of wards, not as office clerk, but as head nurse, (and head nurse the best hospital serjeant, or ward master, is not now and cannot be, from default of the proper regulations), the thing would not, in all probability, have happened.  But were a trustworthy woman in charge of the ward, or set of wards, the thing would not, in all certainty, have happened.  In other words, it does not happen where a trustworthy woman is really in charge.  And, in these remarks, I by no means refer only to exceptional times of great emergency in war hospitals, but also, and quite as much, to the ordinary run of military hospitals at home, in time of peace; or to a time in war when our army was actually more healthy than at home in peace, and the pressure on our hospitals consequently much less.

[Sidenote:  Nursing in Regimental Hospitals.]

It is often said that, in regimental hospitals, patients ought to “nurse each other,” because the number of sick altogether being, say, but thirty, and out of these one only perhaps being seriously ill, and the other twenty-nine having little the matter with them, and nothing to do, they should be set to nurse the one; also, that soldiers are so trained to obey, that they will be the most obedient, and therefore the best of nurses, add to which they are always kind to their comrades.

Now, have those who say this, considered that, in order to obey, you must know how to obey, and that these soldiers certainly do not know how to obey in nursing.  I have seen these “kind” fellows (and how kind they are no one knows so well as myself) move a comrade so that, in one case at least, the man died in the act.  I have seen the comrades’ “kindness” produce abundance of spirits, to be drunk in secret.  Let no one understand by this that female nurses ought to, or could be introduced in regimental hospitals.  It would be most undesirable, even were it not impossible.  But the head nurseship of a hospital serjeant is the more essential, the more important, the more inexperienced the nurses.  Undoubtedly, a London hospital “sister” does sometimes set relays of patients to watch a critical case; but, undoubtedly also, always under her own superintendence; and she is called to whenever there is something to be done, and she knows how to do it.  The patients are not left to do it of their own unassisted genius, however “kind” and willing they may be.