A Surgeon in Belgium | Page 6

another half-mile till he could get help. When he was brought into the hospital, he was so exhausted from pain and loss of blood that no one thought that he could live for more than a few hours, but by sheer pluck he had pulled through. Even now he was desperately ill with as horrible a wound as a man could have, but nothing was going to depress him. I am glad to say that what is known in surgery as a short circuit was an immediate success, and when we left him three weeks later in Ghent he was to all intents perfectly well.
There were plenty of other serious cases, some of them with ghastly injuries, and many of them must have suffered agonizing pain; but they were all doing their best to make light of their troubles, whilst their gratitude for what was done for them was extraordinary. The Belgians are by nature a cheerful race, but these were brave men, and we felt glad that we had come out to do what we could for them.
But if we give them credit for their courage and cheerfulness, we must not forget how largely they owed it to the devoted attention--yes, and to the courage and cheerfulness--of the nurses. I wonder how many of us realize what Britain owes to her nurses. We take them as a matter of course, we regard nursing as a very suitable profession for a woman to take up--if she can find nothing better to do; perhaps we may have been ill, and we were grateful for a nurse's kindness. But how many of us realize all the long years of drudgery that have given the skill we appreciated, the devotion to her work that has made the British nurse what she is? And how many of us realize that we English-speaking nations alone in the world have such nurses? Except in small groups, they are unknown in France, Belgium, Germany, Russia, or any other country in the world. In no other land will women leave homes of ease and often of luxury to do work that no servant would touch, for wages that no servant would take--work for which there will be very little reward but the unmeasured gratitude of the very few. They stand to-day as an unanswerable proof that as nations we have risen higher in the level of civilization than any of our neighbours. To their influence on medicine and surgery I shall refer again. Here I only wish to acknowledge our debt. As a mere patient I would rather have a good nurse than a good physician, if I were so unfortunate as to have to make the choice. A surgeon is a dangerous fellow, and must be treated with respect. But as a rule the physician gives his blessing, the surgeon does his operation, but it is the nurse who does the work.

III. The Day's Work

In any hospital at home or abroad there is a large amount of routine work, which must be carried on in an orderly and systematic manner, and upon the thoroughness with which this is done will largely depend the effectiveness of the hospital. Patients must be fed and washed, beds must be made and the wards swept and tidied, wounds must be dressed and splints adjusted. In an English hospital everything is arranged to facilitate this routine work. Close to every ward is a sink- room with an adequate supply of hot and cold water, dinner arrives in hot tins from the kitchens as if by magic, whilst each ward has its own arrangements for preparing the smaller meals. The beds are of a convenient height, and there is an ample supply of sheets and pillow- cases, and of dressing materials of all kinds arranged on tables which run noiselessly up and down the wards. At home all these things are a matter of course; abroad they simply did not exist. Four or five gas- rings represented our hot-water supply and our ward-kitchens for our 150 patients, and the dinners had to be carried up from the large kitchens in the basement. The beds were so low as to break one's back, and had iron sides which were always in the way; and when we came to the end of our sheets--well, we came to the end of them, and that was all. In every way the work was heavier and more difficult than at home, for all our patients were heavy men, and every wound was septic, and had, in many cases, to be dressed several times a day. Everyone had to work hard, sometimes very hard; but as a rule we got through the drudgery in the morning, and in the afternoon everything was in order, and we should, I think,