Virgin Saints and MartyrsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Virgin Saints and Martyrs
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Christian women saints; Martyrs
She had so much to do with burns that she became specially skilful in
treating them. Children terribly burnt or scalded were constantly
brought to the hospital; often men came scalded from a boiler, or by
molten metal. She dressed their wounds herself, but, if possible, always
sent the patients to be tended at home, where she would visit them and
regularly dress their wounds, rather than have the wards tainted by the
effluvium from the burns. Her treatment of burnt children merits
quotation.
“If a large surface of the body was burnt, or if the child seemed beside
itself with terror, she did not touch the wounds themselves, but only
carefully excluded the air from them by means of cotton wool and
blankets wrapped round the body. She put hot bottles and flannel to the
feet, and, if necessary, ice to the head. Then she gave her attention to
soothing and consoling the shocked nerves—a state which she considered
to be often a more immediate source of danger to the life of the child
than the actual injuries. She fed it with milk and brandy, unless it
violently refused food, when she would let it alone until it came round,
saying that force, or anything which involved even a slight further
shock to the system, was worse than useless. Sometimes, of course, the
fatal sleep of exhaustion, from which there was no awakening, would
follow; but more often than not food was successfully administered, and
after a few hours, Sister Dora, having gained the child’s confidence,
could dress the wounds without fear of exciting the frantic terror which
would have been the result of touching them at first.”
Children Sister Dora dearly loved; her heart went out to them with
infinite tenderness, and she was even known to sleep with a burnt baby
on each arm. What that means only those know who have had experience of
the sickening smell arising from burns.
Once a little girl of nine was brought into the hospital so badly burnt
that it was obvious she had not many hours to live. Sister Dora sat by
her bed talking to her of Jesus Christ and His love for little children,
and of the blessed home into which He would receive them. The child died
peacefully, and her last words were: “Sister, when you come to heaven,
I’ll meet you at the gates with a bunch of flowers.”
One of the most heroic of her many heroic acts was taking charge of the
small-pox hospital when a second epidemic broke out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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