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WOMEN OF THE WAR
I
DR. GARRETT ANDERSON, C.B.E., AND DR. FLORA MURRAY, C.B.E.
Dr. Garrett Anderson and Dr. Flora Murray have contributed one of the finest pages to the annals of women’s work during the war, and by their success have greatly advanced the position of women in the medical world.
Dr. Garrett Anderson was already a well-known surgeon, and Dr. Flora Murray equally well known as a physician, in pre-war days, the former having qualified in 1897, and the latter in 1903. Dr. Garrett Anderson is a daughter of Mrs. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, M.D., the first British medical woman.
During the month after the war broke out, Dr. Garrett Anderson and Dr. Flora Murray together organised a Voluntary Women’s Hospital Unit, staffed by medical women, and offered their services to the French Red Cross. They established a hospital of 100 beds in Paris, at Claridge’s Hotel, Champs Elysées, and it is notable that this was the first of the voluntary hospitals in Paris to start work in September, 1914. Both British and French wounded were received and treated.
It was not long before the excellent work of these two doctors attracted very special attention, with the result that they were approached by the War Office, and asked to organise a hospital at Wimereux near Boulogne, attached to the Royal Army Medical Corps. This invitation was a considerable triumph, for it was the first time that medical women were officially singled out by the British Government and given equal responsibility with medical men.
The Army medical authorities were quick to realise how wisely their trust had been bestowed, and, in February, 1915, Dr. Garrett Anderson and Dr. Flora Murray were asked to take up work on a larger scale, and to undertake the entire management of the Endell Street Hospital, a large military hospital in London.
During its two years of work for the sick and wounded, no military hospital has succeeded in establishing a finer record. To see it is a wonderful experience. The hospital consists of 17 wards, with 578 beds, and is entirely staffed by women—surgeons, doctors, pathologists, oculists, dental surgeons, anæsthetists, dispensers, nurses, orderlies. The only men are the patients.