CALIFORNIA.
The Nurses’ Auxiliary, a very valuable adjunct to the California Branch, has undertaken to start factory lectures and demonstrations at noon hour, beginning Friday, April 30. Miss Brown, Miss Rutley, Miss Killiam, Miss Smith, Miss Jorgensen, Miss Fisher and Miss McCarthy, well-known specialists in their different departments, are to talk upon hygiene, dietetics, bedmaking, contagious diseases, tuberculosis, medical and surgical emergencies and first aid. Several factories, laundries and department stores are interested in these methods and consider them of practical use to working women. The Y. W. C. A., through the co-operation of Miss Smith, will make arrangements for evening lectures for individual business women in offices and stores. About 150 young women can be reached immediately. Miss Smith also reported that many young married women employed in factories are much interested. There are many wide-awake women in department stores and factories who not only support themselves, but their sick relatives also. Very much good can be done through the settlements and mothers’ clubs.
The Woman’s Auxiliary of the Relief Column has inaugurated a series of talks on home nursing and prevention of disease under the direction of Dr. Clara Williams.
The work is capable of infinite expansion on almost any scale. It bids fair to reach sufficient magnitude to make the problems of organizations, permanence, finance, equipment and membership of importance to the future of Red Cross work. We cannot forget the essential functions of the Red Cross are gravest in time of war and calamity in relation to great masses of humanity, but there is as much patriotism expressed in teaching the individual in time of peace to attain maximum efficiency and resistance to disease.