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
Having settled them, I started my rounds, and soon found that the worst
case was a poor chap with pneumonia; fortunately he was in a building
(instead of a tent), so it was possible to keep him fairly warm. The
night orderly was not a very intelligent youth, but he was fairly
watchful and obedient, and for four nights I spent every spare minute
with this man, and really thought we should pull him through; then the
fifth night the day sister met me in a very bad temper, and said, "What
_do_ you think? they have moved our poor O. down to a very draughty
enteric tent; after all the trouble we have taken to pull him round! I
am sure he will die there." I asked why he had been moved, as there had
been no sign of enteric, and she replied that she could not get any
reason, but an orderly had told her that "the doctor said that he was
going to die, and he did not want any death up there."
Poor chap, he did die the next day, and of course he _might_ have done
so in any case, but to shift him then just took away his only chance.
It has been very cold all the time that I have been on night duty, but
two of the nights were so horrible that I don't think I shall ever
forget them. Sister ---- is on with me now, so we grumble together; for
those two nights it was blowing _hard_, and then a sleety rain came on
that positively cut like knives, and was almost paralysing; on the
second of those two nights I struggled back to the duty room and flopped
down by the fire, which was very low, but I had not even the energy to
poke it up; after a bit Sister came in dripping wet and looking blue
with cold; she set down her lantern, and then came to the fire and gazed
at me, and, after a bit, said, "Sister, you do look ill." I tried to
laugh, but I think we were both much nearer crying with cold; so I
struggled up to attend to the fire and brewed some tea, and after a bit
Sister said, "Do you know, Sister, when I came in I thought you looked
as though you were going to die, and if you had been, I positively had
not the power to set to work to get you a hot drink or anything."
I told her I thought we were both too tough to die of cold, and then we
both (feeling a little better for the tea and warmth) had to tramp off
again to give brandy to some of the bad cases. After that, they put on
another night sister, so the work was not quite so hard, and we could
take rather longer spells in the duty room to get warm, but we have not
had rain (as well as the cold) except on those two nights.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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