Relieved of all cleaning, and relieved of the great loss of time incurred by fetching, waiting, &c., &c., none of these Nurses, who are, in fact, Head Nurses, should serve less than forty men. And, as I before submitted, I had rather she served fifty or sixty than forty. Give them twenty-four patients, and either they will become idle, finicking women, or they will take to petting the patients, a thing to be sedulously avoided everywhere, most of all in Military Hospitals. [Sidenote: 4. Importance of the Head Nurse sleeping close to her Ward.] 4. The more we see of different systems, the more apparent becomes the importance of the Head Nurse (all these are Head Nurses) sleeping close to the ward:-- As regards the efficiency of her service:-- As regards the saving her own time, strength, and securing her a modicum of comfort in a work where, if she does her duty, she will never have a superfluity of comfort. Time, strength, and this modicum of comfort, enter much into a Nurse’s health--and health is essential both for efficiency and economy. Where the Nurse sleeps at a distance from her ward, her efficiency, both as to superintendence and work, especially at night, in dangerous cases, is seriously impaired. If she sleeps at a distance from her ward, her comfort, also, such as it is, is destroyed. Whatever a Nurse does for herself, she must do by fits and starts. A really efficient Head Nurse is never able to make anything for herself, though she often would far rather save the money it costs to “put it out.” The most simple mendings, even the feat of stowing away the laundress’ supply of a Saturday evening, become, when a ward is heavy, or when there are two or three of those cases of urgent danger, so many of which, by God’s blessing, the assiduous care of these women saves, year by year, in our Hospitals, a procedure done in several acts. The misery of dividing her small effects (the smaller the better) between a day-room and a distant sleeping-room, the unseemliness and inconvenience of carrying things backwards and forwards, cannot be described. If it be possible, the Nurses must sleep adjoining their wards; and it will not do to give each only 24 patients. It would be considerably better, if feasible, to have two Nurses in contiguous rooms; but in the Pavilion Plan this would involve bringing one Nurse away from her ward; and rather than this, the next best, though inferior plan is to put one Nurse immediately above and below the other, with a distinct bell which she can in a moment ring from her bed into the other Nurse’s room, to summon her if needed. [Sidenote: Importance of Lighting Hospital Wards by Gas, with Sanitary Precautions.]