12 Trained Nurses. By Krausz, Sigmund

What a blessing to humanity the noble sisterhood of trained nurses is! Clad in their plain brown, gray or dark-blue habit, they remind one of the Sisters of Mercy. And that is what they are to a certain extent; for money can hardly repay the tender care and unlimited patience which they extend to the sick at the hospitals and private homes. If it takes innate predilection and absolute devotion to succeed in a profession, the trained nurse has to have both in the highest degree. A course of two, or even three years, in one of the training schools will not make a nurse, in the true sense of the word, out of a woman, unless she be devoted to the work with her whole heart and being. Nurses, like poets, are born and not made, and it is quite a difference to the sick whether a nurse takes care of them whose heart is in her work or one who, like an automaton, simply takes the temperature and administers with clock-like regularity the prescribed doses of medicine.

Ah! a good nurse is like an angel around the suffering, and if her touch cannot heal, her presence can certainly alleviate and help to endure the pains of the sick-bed.

The trained nurses are street types only in the sense that they are met with frequently on the thoroughfares of the city, where they are easily distinguished by their modest and nun-like garb. When they are seen on the streets it is generally to seek relaxation from the arduous duties of the sick-room and to catch a breath of fresh air so as to gain new strength for the vigil of the coming night. God bless them!