On that of efficiency of inspection;
From the nature of Military Hospitals, where the aim should be throughout to combine great simplicity with thorough efficiency;
From the importance of training the staff, male and female, of Military Hospitals, for service in War Hospitals, where every man or woman who can be spared is better away.
2. Yet economy of hands, carried too far, becomes, like all other such economies, penny wise and pound foolish.
3. Without doubt, large wards can be efficiently served by fewer hands than small or moderate wards. But, as sanitary considerations limit the size of wards to from 24 to 30 patients, let us make this the basis of all calculation.
4. The more it is considered, the more essential it appears, to train Nurses, from the first, to do efficiently a great deal of work. A small staff of respectable, laborious, and thoroughly efficient women seems the thing to be aimed at; whether considering Military Hospitals by themselves, or as a training-school for Hospital war-service.
5. It would be better to give each Nurse one great ward; but wards above a certain size are inadmissible for sanitary reasons.
6. The care of 24 to 30 patients is not sufficient duty, by a great deal, for a Nurse.
7. Therefore, upon the whole, and as decidedly the lesser of two evils, I recommend assigning to each Nurse two wards.