In March 1856 the following appeared in “General Orders.” Had it but been seventeen months earlier how much it might have saved![3] The definition of the Superintendent-General’s powers and duties, therein contained, is all that is wanted to prevent irregularities disastrous to the Service. GENERAL ORDERS. _March 1856._ “It is notified, by order of the Secretary of State for War, that Miss Nightingale is recognized by Her Majesty’s Government as the General Superintendent of the Female Nursing Establishment of the Military Hospitals of the Army. No lady, sister, or nurse is to be transmitted from one Hospital to another, or into any Hospital, without previous consultation with her. Her instructions, however, require her to have the approval of the Principal Medical Officer, in her exercise of the responsibility thus vested in her. “The Principal Medical Officer will communicate with Miss Nightingale upon all subjects connected with the Female Nursing Establishment, and will give his directions through that lady.” II. _Nurses._ 1. Our Nurses were of four sorts. Nuns. Sisters (Anglican). Ladies. Nurses. The Nuns were received not as Nuns, but as Nurses. Their (so called) training told sometimes against us; sometimes for us. The same with the “Sisters” (Anglican). The Ladies were useful, exactly in proportion as they approached the professional, and not the dilettante, mode of thought. A larger proportion of paid Nurses than of Ladies did well, and this under circumstances of peculiar temptation. Paid Nurses are always the most useful. 2. There should always be a proportion of Nurses in Army Hospitals To preside in Extra Diet Kitchens,[4] ″ in Linen Stores. To teach the Orderlies to nurse in the Wards. The proportion of Roman Catholic “Sœurs,” in French Military Hospitals, is as small as this would be; they undertake even less duty than this: in Military Hospitals they do much less than in Civil Hospitals. Women in Military Hospitals should all be contracted servants, whether Nuns, Ladies, or professional Nurses. There should be a retiring pension to each woman. 3. Miss Nightingale took service on the ground of being under the Principal Medical Officer, and, consequently, of not interfering with him. There was no _imperium in imperio_ in her case. This exists in the case of the French “Sœurs de Charité,” and existed in individual instances among the “Sisters” under Miss Nightingale; _i. e._, they gave articles of diet, &c., as from Sisters, not in obedience to Medical orders. This was immediately put a stop to by her. That the Medical Officer is sole master of diets, is an axiom of medicine, and of common sense. This involved our only _answering_ the Extra Diet Rolls in our kitchens; not originating either in quantity or quality.