More or less danger is inseparable from powerful steam machinery, or powerful machinery of any kind: the question is one of degree.
Thirdly. Both sides of the Hospital have one thing in common. Except the sculleries of the 3 ground floor wards on the male side, which have each a stove or fire place, the kitchens or sculleries attached to all the other wards are warmed by hot water. Undoubtedly this saves much mess, much cleaning of stoves &c., and much bringing of fuel and consequent dirt. But the absence of fire is always a loss to the service of a ward. Sundry things, some one or other, often all of which are constantly wanted in a large ward, e.g. warming broth or drink, cooking for an extra bad case, warming poultices, warming (not airing) linen for ditto, &c., &c., &c., are much more slowly done by water than fire heat, and it is a question, variously answered, whether some of these things are as well done by the slow water method, as by the quick fire heat. Occasionally the hot water is not forthcoming, a nuisance alike to the ward attendants of the ward whose scullery is thus heated, and to those of the wards supplied with stoves, which have then to do, in driblets, considerable extra duty.
During the hot months the smell of the latrines is very little perceptible in the wards, generally not at all: but the test of this, as of the ventilation, is in winter, when the large window close to the latrines is generally closed, and the smell is very offensive.
II.—Oiled Boards versus Parquets.
1. They have in common the superiority over common floorings—that they are not scrubbed, and the damp thus arising is avoided.
2. As regards labour, so far as Civil Hospitals are concerned, where the ward service is done by women, parquets would be more laborious than scrubbing; a large ward, to be kept in a proper state, requires a certain amount of frottage (the peculiar polishing of parquets) every day; and this frottage is held to be unfit, from the fatigue it causes and the strength it requires, to be done by women, and is always done by men. Certainly Ward Nurses could never be required to frotter; it is altogether a man’s business.
3. As regards labour, so far as Military or Naval Hospitals are concerned, where men preponderate in the ward service, it is my impression (for of course I cannot pretend any certainty as to this), that sailors who are proverbially handy (a different quality from either laboriousness or endurance, though they have these too) would, with instruction and painstaking, accomplish in time frottage; that civilians would under the same conditions; that soldier orderlies (infinitely, I humbly think, the best material for the staple of military ward service), would generally make bad frotteurs.
4. As regards labour, cleaning oiled boards, though a laborious business, is much less so than either scrubbing or frottéing; and is fully within the power of average strong women: none other should nurse. (What subdivision of cleaning the ward, and of nursing properly so-called, might both improve the work done and relieve the Nurses, is another thing; my impression remains, that it is better to consider these things to a certain extent as distinct duties, discharged by women ranking alike; and that in a ward of forty, served by a Head Nurse and three Nurses, to charge one with the main ward cleaning, is better economy of strength and time than to divide it among the three).
5. As regards labour, any Orderly giving his mind to it for a day at the shortest, or a week at the longest, ought to learn thoroughly how to clean polished oiled boards well, always supposing him to be properly taught a very simple thing, which, like everything else, can be done well, ill, or indifferently.
6. Apart from the question of labour augmented or spared, the advantages of oiled and polished boards I believe to be these:—