Any person entering into a community as nurse is not obliged to take any kind of oath, but gives only the promise to submit to a vigorous discipline, to acquit him or herself conscientiously of all duties and to nurse the sick carefully. The feminine personnel is divided into two categories—sisters of charity and nurses for surgery.
The surgical nurses have to pass a three years’ course, the sister of charity a one-and-a-half year’s course of studies, according to a program established by the Chief Board of Administration. The courses to be followed are theoretical and practical, which consist chiefly of lectures at the sick bed, held mainly in the hospitals of the Red Cross, and partially in military, municipal and private hospitals, according to arrangements between these hospitals and the Red Cross. Having finished the courses, the surgical nurses enter either the institutions of the Red Cross or hospital institutions maintained by the government or municipalities. The sisters of charity are delegated to the military hospitals, which the Red Cross has undertaken to supply with nurses, to other hospitals and to private nursery. In 1906 there were 3,819 of these Red Cross sisters, and since 1875 there have been graduated 2,000 of the higher class of trained surgical nurses.
The care for disabled soldiers after the war includes the furnishing of means for cures at health resorts, as well as furnishing them with warm clothes, artificial limbs, crutches, etc., or provides for their care in asylums of the Society.
The asylums for invalids in 1906 received 737. Among other sums granted, the Society paid in 1906, 10,940 roubles to the former defenders of Sabastopol, during the Crimean War in 1854.
Red Cross Hospital Train.
In St. Petersburg the Society possesses six stations for help in emergency cases, with twelve ambulances and sixteen attendants.
The Russian Red Cross Society has taken part in all wars and military expeditions which have occurred since 1868.
During the Franco-Prussian war, the Russian Red Cross sent to Basel a party of 30 surgeons and large quantities of supplies which were equally distributed to the belligerents.
It sent a generous contribution to both parties during the Civil War in Spain in 1873. In 1876 surgeons and nurses were sent for assistance in the Turkish-Martemgian War, expending $42,000. During the Turkish-Servian War it expended over $263,000 and sent 115 doctors, 4 pharmacists, 118 nurses, 41 medical students, 78 assistant surgeons, besides hospital equipment for 200 beds.