Each nurse should be instructed to bring with her two laundry bags—one to be kept in her room to receive soiled linen, the other to be sent to the sorting room, to remain till the clean clothes are returned in it. A list of the articles contained should be pinned to each bag to facilitate the sorting of the clean clothes and for reference. It is needless to state that all nurse’s clothing should be marked with her full name. Initials may be sufficient marking in a home, but are useless in a hospital. If it can be brought about (and it can by insisting on it), it will be found that a uniform system of marking nurses’ clothing will be a great saving of time in sorting. To have a pile of thirty or forty nightdresses to sort and put in bags, and find no two marked in the same place, making it necessary to unfold every garment and look it over on all sides to find the mark, is an unnecessary trial and waste of time for whoever has the sorting to do. If each garment were marked on the under side of the front, which is usually folded on top, to sort them would be an easy matter. To return clothing without being washed, when the nurse has not marked it properly, is the only way to teach nurses, who are habitually careless in their marking. Printed laundry lists should be furnished for the sorting room, duplicate lists of each lot of clothes sent to the laundry being made. One list goes to the head laundress, the other is retained in the sorting room for reference. HOUSEKEEPER’S LINEN ACCOUNT BOOK ------+--------------------+-------------------+-------+----------- Date | Supplies Purchased | Supplies Received | Value | Remarks ------+--------------------+-------------------+-------+----------- | | | | ------+--------------------+-------------------+-------+----------- | | | | ------+--------------------+-------------------+-------+----------- | | | | ------+--------------------+-------------------+-------+----------- | | | | ------+--------------------+-------------------+-------+----------- CHAPTER V. [Sidenote: The Hospital Laundry] Perhaps no part of the hospital housekeeper’s domain will call for a greater expenditure of her energy and patience than the laundry. Though out of sight, its results are always in evidence, and failure in the laundry means that every part of the work of the establishment is handicapped. There may be abundance of linen to meet the needs of the hospital, and yet if constant supervision over the work of the laundry is not exercised, three-fourths of the linen supply may at times be found piled in the laundry, the linen room shelves empty, and the nurses flying hither and thither on borrowing expeditions when a clean towel is called for.