A Nurse's Life in War and PeaceLaurence, E. C. (Eleanor Constance)
History
A Nurse's Life in War and Peace
Laurence, E. C. (Eleanor Constance)
Military nursing; Nursing -- Great Britain; South African War, 1899-1902 -- Medical care
I had a curious case the other day that gave us a good deal of
anxiety--that of a young lance-corporal, who had been bad with malaria,
but was better and able to sit up in bed. I left him one night very
cheery and bright, and the next morning I happened to meet the night
sister as she went off duty, and she said, "Oh, Sister, I forgot to
report that that lance-corporal of yours in tent 3 did not seem so well,
and he was sick this morning." I thought that I would go and look at him
first instead of beginning my round in tent 1, and I was shocked to find
the poor boy quite unconscious, and almost pulseless. Of course I sent
for the doctor and got brandy, hot bottles, &c.; the doctor thought it
was all up, but he injected strychnine; he said he thought it must have
been typhoid and not malaria, and that this meant perforation. Anyhow,
the boy began to revive; I hardly left him all day, but now I think I
may say he is out of danger; I really think it was heart trouble,
perhaps embolism, but I have seldom seen a man pull round after being as
nearly gone as he was.
Of course you will have heard that the poor old _Tantallon Castle_, the
ship on which we first came out, has gone down on Robben Island. The
passengers and the mails were saved, and I was rejoiced when a nice,
soft little blanket arrived that my people had sent out by her; I roll
myself in it inside my sheets, and am much more comfortable.
It is a curious thing that so many ships in which I have travelled have
gone to the bottom: I made one trip years ago up the coast on the
_Drummond Castle_, and went down the coast on the _Courland Castle_; I
also went home from Tenerife on the _Fez_--they have all gone down, and
now the _Tantallon Castle_ has shared their fate.
There was a big dance one night about three miles from here, to which
twelve of the sisters went, and another night there were some
theatricals. I daresay I am wrong, but somehow these festivities seem a
little out of place while the war is still going on. Some of the sisters
appear to think that they have come out here to have as much fun as they
can get, and they talk about very little except the men they have been
dancing with, and so on.
The wind has been tremendous lately, and four of the patients' tents
have been blown to ribbons; we seem to spend most of our time on duty
trying to keep the men's tents up (with not more of the gale than is
absolutely necessary blowing round the bad cases), and most of our time
off duty in attending to our own tent-pegs, &c. Of course wind here
always means dust, and sometimes it seems as though the stones fly up
and hit you in the face, and unless one takes great care the patients'
milk is soon full of sand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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