Does anyone know ANY kind of info about nurses during WW1. common hospitals or things like that. Just anything you can tell me. I have to do a project and i need info about it. Thanks! And links to websites can work too.
Translate Post: 
 |
 |
||
|
|||
 |
 |
 |
NurseWords.com
dictionary of nursing abbreviations and acronyms
|
 |
 |
 |
Many American women went to Europe as volunteers before America entered the war, and some found themselves working in French hospitals with little or no training.
“I knew nothing about nursing and had to learn on my patients, a painful process for all concerned” said Juliet Goodrich, who had been a c anteen worker until she was recruited to work in a Paris medical facility in 1918. The volunteeers were very adventurous. “To be in the fornt ranks in thi most dramatic event that was ever staged, and to be in the first group of women ever called out for duty with the United States Army. . . .is all too much good fortune for any one person.” enthused Julia Stimson. “It isn’t exactly an alluring prospect to be exiled in the backwoods of Russia for a couple of months with only two English-speaking people to run an infectious hospital, but it will be rather fun.” said Ruth Holden.
An American nurse called Shirley Millard wrote a description of what it was like to assist at an operation in a French hospital.
‘Dr Le B’s hands, encased in rubber gloves, were swift and sure. He always worked with a cigarette hanging limply from the corner of his mouth. It was part of my job to keep lighting fresh ones for him. At first when the ashes fell into an open wound over which he was working, I asked him frantically what I should do about it. He went on calmly, muttering “N’importe ca. C’est sterile.”
It did not matter, the ashes were sterile. I have since been amused at the thought of so many men journeying through life sublimely unconscious that some part or another of their anatomy had once served as Dr Le B’s ash-tray.
Have been working in the various wards and am rapidly becoming a real nurse. At least there is practically nothing I have not done in the last few weeks. I have taken care of, individually and collectively, hundreds of French, British, Algerian, Arabs, Zouaves, Seegalese, a number of Americans, and also many Germans.
The Germans are wounded prisoners, and on the whole, thoroughly unpleasant. Especially the officers, who have been purposely mixed in with the enlisted men to give them a much-needed taste of democracy.
Some of the officers are members of the Kaiser’s crack Prussian division, and bitterly resent the ignominy of capture. They are given the same consideration as our own men and the same care, but they are sulky and arrogant and give orders in a manner that makes our blood boil. We cannot help disliking them. They make the perfect picture of what one imagines an enemy to be. Insolent, cocky, and rude.’
A nurse working at the front wrote about what it was like to work under fire:
“We have just begun taking in our first cases. An officer died soon after admission, between 4 and 5 am.
The Air people began streaming over at daylight, adding their whirring and droning to the din. The mines have been going off since 5 like earthquakes. Lots of high explosive has beencoming over but nothing so far into this Camp. The uproar is almost stupifying.
We have been working in the roar of battle every minute since I last wrote, and it has been almost too exciting. I’ve not had time to hear any details from any of our poor abdominals, but the news has been good till this evening, thousands of prisoners – and ypres choked with guns and aummunition.
We have a lot of Germans in – all abdominals. Everything has been going at full pitch – with the 12 teams in the Theatre only breaking off for hasty meals – the Dressing Hut, the Preparation Ward and REsucsciatiation and the four huge Acute Wards, which fill up from the Theatre, the Officers Ward, the Moribund and the German Ward. Soon after 10 o’clock he began putting over high explosive. Everyone had to put on tin hats and carry on. He kept it up all the morning with vicious screams. They burst on two sides of us – not 50 yards away – no direct hits on to us but streams of shrapnel, which were quite hot when you picke dthem up. Luckily we were so frantically busy that it was easier to pay less attention to it. The patients who werre well enough to realise that they were not still on the field called it a “dirty trick.” ‘ – K. E Luard