XI
PRISON NURSING
This is, at the present time, carried out by the ordinary staff of prison warders. There are all over England not more than two or three trained nurses among them, and it is most desirable that properly trained women should be in charge of prison infirmary wards, just as much as in the infirmary wards of workhouses. Prisoners are just as likely to suffer from disease as other people, and they surely do not forfeit all claim to expert care, simply because they have, perhaps in a moment of weakness, yielded to temptation. To one form of illness needing specially expert nursing, they are peculiarly liable—mental disease. It is almost impossible to gauge the amount of good which might be done both for the individual and for society by providing trained nurses to attend to these unfortunate people.