A larger proportion of paid Nurses than of Ladies did well, and this under circumstances of peculiar temptation. Paid Nurses are always the most useful.
2. There should always be a proportion of Nurses in Army Hospitals
- To preside in Extra Diet Kitchens,[4]
- To preside in Linen Stores.
- To teach the Orderlies to nurse in the Wards.
The proportion of Roman Catholic “Sœurs,” in French Military Hospitals, is as small as this would be; they undertake even less duty than this: in Military Hospitals they do much less than in Civil Hospitals.
Women in Military Hospitals should all be contracted servants, whether Nuns, Ladies, or professional Nurses.
There should be a retiring pension to each woman.
3. Miss Nightingale took service on the ground of being under the Principal Medical Officer, and, consequently, of not interfering with him.
There was no imperium in imperio in her case.
This exists in the case of the French “Sœurs de Charité,” and existed in individual instances among the “Sisters” under Miss Nightingale; i. e., they gave articles of diet, &c., as from Sisters, not in obedience to Medical orders. This was immediately put a stop to by her. That the Medical Officer is sole master of diets, is an axiom of medicine, and of common sense.
This involved our only answering the Extra Diet Rolls in our kitchens; not originating either in quantity or quality.