But, on the other hand, the saving of expense in the number of physician’s visits is to be considered, since he can trust the report of the nurse, and so the patient is better cared for, without additional expense. During the last months of study, the nurse’s work is among the poor, under the direction of the dispensary physicians. Not only are the patients much helped by this arrangement, but the experience is of great value to the nurses, as they see a greater variety of work than they can in a hospital and under differing conditions of life, and are thus fitted to meet what comes to them in their future practice.
Societies are also formed by women for supplying nurses to the sick poor. Such associations employ a number of trained nurses in attendance on patients who are unable to pay full price. They work both in connection with dispensaries and independently of them. Usually a nurse makes two visits a day to her patient, doing for her whatever members of the household cannot do, but she is always required to instruct some of the family, if possible, in the simple methods of care of the sick. She also uses her opportunity to enforce common rules of hygiene and sanitary care on all the household. In this way it is hoped that much may be done for the prevention of disease as well at its cure.
The “Visiting Nurse Society, of Philadelphia,” may serve for a good model of such associations.[[200]]
While it has been impossible in limited space to do full justice to all the good work now doing in the training of nurses, there are yet two directions, of which I wish to speak, in which it should be extended. It is desirable that women should be especially trained for the care of insane patients, who need peculiar care both in institutions and in private life. The extreme watchfulness and the power of control required for this service seem to demand a special training, which would be unnecessary or even prejudicial in ordinary nursing. This subject is already engaging the attention of those having the care of the insane, and I doubt not they will find means to carry out their ideas.
Again, I believe that nursing would afford a wide field of usefulness for the colored women of our Southern States. Their qualities of patience, sweetness, and affection are well adapted to this profession, and when to these is added the intellectual education which is now within the reach of many of them, there is no reason why, with good training, they should not do excellent service. Many of the best nurses in our Southern cities are of this class. The University of Atlanta, Ga., has made some attempt to introduce nursing into its practical education, and I hope other experiments will soon be made. So far as I know the New England Hospital is the only one that admits colored pupils to its training school. Here this measure has been entirely successful, and no disagreeable feeling has arisen on the part of patients or any one else. The colored students have maintained a fair average in their standing, and some have been superior. A good education is the most important prerequisite to the entrance of colored women into this field.
While my fruitful theme is by no means exhausted, I wish in conclusion to add one thought, viz., that however decidedly these hospitals of which I have spoken owe their existence to women, either as originating or endowing them, in every case within my knowledge there is a union of both sexes in the management of the institution. The arrangements are very various; in some cases the managers are all women and the physicians are men; in others all the physicians but the consulting staff are women, while the board of management is divided between the sexes; in others we find the women have full charge, with an advisory board of men. This proves that women have been more anxious to secure good management than to establish their own claims. It is an earnest of future improvement when both sexes shall work together in all departments of life, each bringing her or his peculiar talents to the work, either as individuals or as representing a part of the community.
XIV.
CARE OF THE CRIMINAL.
BY
SUSAN HAMMOND BARNEY.
When Elizabeth Fry, in 1815, rapped at the prison doors in England, she not only summoned the turnkey, but sounded a call to women in other lands to enter upon a most Christlike mission. The reports of her work in Great Britain and on the Continent, published at intervals during several succeeding years, extracts of which found their way into American papers, not only awakened admiration for the fearless courage manifested in the self-denying efforts, but marvel at what she was able to accomplish, and, from the reading, a few women in our land arose to ask the question, “Lord, what will Thou have me to do?” and in the answer found new light upon the words, “I was in prison and ye visited me.”